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=7erminie 


BY EDMOND AND JULES DE GONCOURT 


CHICAGO: 

LAIRD & LEE, PUBLISHERS. 
1891 



V 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 



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i. 






THB LIBRAK.Y OF CHOICE FICTION 


G ERMINIE'LaCERTEUX 


BY 

EDMOND^AND JULES OF GONCOURT 


WITH TEN ILLUSTRATIONS BY JEANNIOT 


TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH 


H, E. M. 


CHICAGO 

Laird & Lee Publishers 
1891 





Copyright 1891 by LAIRD & LEE] 


ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 


PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 


^We must demand the public’s pardon for giving 
them this book and for warning them as to its con- 
tents. 

The public like fiction; this is fact. They like 
books which deal with the fashionable world; this 
is taken from the street. They like wicked stories, 
confessions, scandals; this is pure and severe — it 
does not deal with the exposure of pleasure; it is 
a study of love. 

Why, then, did you write it? Simply to shock 
the public.? 

No. Living in the nineteenth century, in a time 
of universal suffrage, of democracy, of liberalism, 
we questioned if those who were called the “lower 
classes” had not a claim upon the novel; if that 
world beneath a world, the people, should rest under 
a literary interdict, under the disdain of authors 
who until now have maintained silence as to the 
minds and hearts which they possess. We were 
curious to know if the conventional form of forgot- 
ten literature, tragedy, was extinct; if in a country 
without caste, and without lawful aristocracy, the 
6 


PREFACE 


yfeisfortunes of the poor and lowly appealed to the 
^ interest, to the pity, to the sympathies, in as great 
a degree as the misfortunes of the noble and wealthy; 
if, in a word, the tears which were shed by plebe- 
ians were shed like those of patricians. 

These thoughts caused us to venture on the simple 
romance of “Soeur Philomene” in i86i ; they caused 
us to publish “Germinie Lacerteux” to-day. 

/ ( Now, will this book be criticized.^ It matters not. 
In these days, when the novel is spreading and 
growing; when it is beginning to take the serious, 
impassioned, living form of literary study and social 
inquiry; when it becomes, by analysis and psycho- 
logical research, contemporary moral history — it can 
claim liberties and privileges. And if it seeks for 
art and truth, if it presents misfortune to remind 
the happier ones of Paris, if it exposes to the world ' 
that which Sisters of Mercy are brave enough to 
witness — human suffering which inspires charity — 
if this novel teaches that which in past centuries 
was called by the vast name of Humanity, we shall 
be satisfied^ — for that is its aim. 

Paris, October, 1864. 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


I 

-^“You are saved! you are saved, mademoiselle!” 
joyfully cried the maid, closing the door upon the 
physician; and rushing toward the bed upon which 
her mistress lay, she clasped in her embrace the 
emaciated form. 

The old lady silently took the girl’s head between 
her hands, pressed it to her bosom, heaved a sigh, 
and said: 

“So, I must stiiriive.^” 

This scene occurred in a small room, the window 
of which looked upon a narrow strip of sky, three 
smoky chimneys, and several roofs. 

On the mantel-piece, in this room, stood a clock 
with a large dial-plate, and two candlesticks repre- 
senting three silver swans, their necks pierced by 
golden quivers. By the fire-place an easy-chair, a 
la Voltaire, covered with needle-work in chess- 
board design, such as children and old ladies de- 
light in, extended its empty arms. Two small 


8 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


Italian landscapes, a water-color with the date be- 
low it in red ink, and several miniatures hung upon 
the walls. 

On a mahogany chest of drawers, a bronze figure 
of Time flying with his scythe served as a watch- 
stand for a tiny watch with a cipher of diamonds 
on blue enamel set with pearls. A black and green 
carpet lay upon the floor. At the window and the 
bed were Persian hangings — red upon a chocolate 
ground. 

^ At the head of the bed hung a portrait which 
seemed to look thoughtfully down upon the invalid. 
It represented a man whose hard features rose 
above the high collar of a coat of green satin, while 
about his head was effeminately knotted a scarf in 
the prevailing fashion of the early years of the Revo- 
lution. The old lady lying in the bed resembled 
that portrait. She had the same heavy brows, black 
and imperious, the same aquiline nose — the same 
marked lines of will, of resolution, of strength. 
With her, however, the austerity of expression was 
somewhat mitigated by a ray of kindliness. 

“Why! my Germinie is weeping,” said the mis- 
tress, withdrawing her hands from the maid’s ca- 
resses. 

“Ah, dear lady, I wish I could always weep thus; 
it is so refreshing; it brings to my mind my poor 
mother, and all!” 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


9 


“Come, come,” said mademoiselle, closing her 
eyes and preparing to listen, “tell me your story.” 

“Ah, my poor mother!” The maid stopped. 
Then, with a torrent of words mingled with tears, 
she recommenced: 

^^^^‘Poor woman! I can see her going out for the 
last time — to take me to mass— on the twenty-first 
of January it was. Ah, poor mother, she suffered 
a great deal! She was forty-two when I was born. 
My father caused her many tears! At the time 
there was no bread in the house; and withal he was 
so proud, he would not accept help from the pas- 
tor. We never had any butter. But that made no 
difference to me, for my mother loved me the best 
of all, and she always found a little dripping or 
cheese for me to put on my bread. I was only five 
years old when she died. Her death was a great 
misfortune. I had a brother who was as fair as a 
lily, and good — you cannot think how good. Every 
one was fond of him. By dawn of day he was at 
his work, for we were weavers. They brought him 
yarn from all quarters, and always without weighing 
it. My father was not like him. He worked one 
hour and then he went into the fields; when he re- 
turned, he beat us; he was like a madman; they 
said it was because he was consumptive. Fortu- 
nately, my brother was near by; he kept my second 
sister from pulling my hair and teasing me, for she 


10 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


was jealous when he took me to see them play 
nine-pins. At last it fell to his lot to maintain the 
family. My happiest days were when we killed the 
Christmas pigs, and when I helped prop the vines, 
in the month of June. We had a small vineyard 
at Saint Hilaire. The frost of 1828 killed every- 
thing, and we had a. hard time that year; bread had 
to be made with bran. My father sometimes 
brought home mushrooms. /But our misfortunes 
did not cease; we were oftener hungry than any- 
thing else."\ When I was in the meadow, I would 
watch until no one saw me, then creep along until 
I was near a cow, take off my wooden shoe, and 
milk her. My eldest sister was in service at the 
mayor’s at Lenclos, and she sent home her wages 
of twenty-five francs. The second sewed in the 
village, but she worked from six o’clock until night 
for eight sous; those she wanted to save for the 
fete of Saint Remi. (^There were many who ate two 
potatoes daily for six months, in order to get a new 
dress for that day] Disaster came upon us from 
all sides. My father died. We had to sell our 
vineyard; then my brother was injured; it hap- 
pened in this way: ('He went to the fete at Clef- 
mont; while there he heard it rumored that my 
sister, who was in service, had been dishonored?) 
He fell upon those who accused her. He was not 
very strong. His opponents were too many against 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


11 


one; they threw him down and struck him in the 
stomach with their wooden shoes. They brought 
him home for dead. The physician, however, soon 
helped him, and told us that he was cured. But 
he could scarcely drag himself about. I knew that 
he was dying. When he was dead, poor, dear fel- 
low, the mayor and all the villagers attended his 
funeral. My sister, having left the mayor’s em- 
ploy, was in a situation in Paris; my other sister 
had followed her. I was alone. My mother’s 
cousin took me with her to Damblin; but I was 
unhappy there; I cried every night, and when I 
had an opportunity to escape, I always returned to 
our home. The kind people who lived there kept 
me until my relatives came for me. They knew 
where to find me. At last they wrote to my sister 
in Paris that she must take charge of me. They 
put me in the care of the conductor of a coach 
which ran between Langres and Paris; that was 
how I came to the city. I was then fourteen years 
old.”) 


12 


GERM IN IE L/tCERTEUX 


II 


/nrhe old lady did not speak; she was comparing^ 
her life with that of her maid. 

Mile, de Varandeuil was born in 1782, in a man- 
sion on Rue Royale, and ladies of rank held her at 
the baptismal font. Her father was a friend of 
the Comte D’ Artois, in whose house he held an 
office. M. de Varandeuil had made one of those 
marriages common to the time in which he lived: 
he had married an actress, a singer who, without 
any great talent, had succeeded by the side of Mme. 
Todi, Mme. Ponteuil, and Mme. Saint Huberty. 
^/^The daughter of this union, born in 1782, was 
delicate and not at all handsome, for she had in- 
herited her father’s ridiculously large nose. There 
was nothing in her appearance of which her parents 
had occasion to be vain. Mme. de Varandeuil only 
saw her child once a day, when she permitted her 
to kiss her chin, that her lips might not interfere 
with the rouge on her cheeks. When the Revolu- 
tion broke out, M. de Varandeuil, thanks to the 
protection of Comte D’ Artois, was paymaster. 
Mme. de Varandeuil went to Italy under the pre- 


CERMINIE L/iCERTEUX 


13 


text of ill-health, leaving to her husband the care 
of her daughter and a young son. His manifold 
duties left the selfish father no leisure to give his 
children the necessary attention. His affairs, too, 
became embarrassed. He left Rue Royale for the 
Hotel du Petil Charalois, belonging to his mother, 
who permitted him to make his home there. Time 
glided by. One evening during the first years of 
the establishment of the guillotine, as he was walk- 
ing in Rue Saint Antoine behind a newsboy who 
was crying “Aux voleurs! Aux voleurs!” M. de Var- 
andeuil bought a paper and read a revolutionary 
notice. 

Some time after, his brother was arrested and 
confined in Hotel Tarlaru. His mother, seized 
with terror, foolishly sold the house in which he 
lived for a mere song. Paid in assignats, she died 
of grief, before the decline in value of the paper 
currency. The purchasers accorded M. de Varan- 
deuil permission to occupy the rooms formerly 
used by the stable-boys. He lived, therefore, in 
the rear of the house, dropped his name, posted 
on the door, as he was commanded, the family 
name of Roulot, under which he buried that of de 
Varandeuil, the friend of Comte d’ Artois. There 
he lived in retirement, hiding his head, rarely going 
abroad, without a servant, waited upon by his 
daughter. The Reign of Terror passed for them in 


14 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


the expectation, the fear of death. Every night the 
little child listened at a grated dormer-window to 
the sentences of the day — to the names of the list of 
ivinners in the lottery of Saint Guillotine. At each 
rap upon the door she would open it fearing they 
had come to lead her father to the Place de la 
Revolution, whither her uncle had already been 
taken. Then came the moment when money — 
money, the luxury — would no longer obtain bread. 
It was carried almost by force from the baker’s 
doors; to get it one had to stand for hours in file, 
in the cold morning air. The father dared not 
venture among that crowd of people; he feared 
recognition; he too disliked the inconvenience of 
the job. The little boy was too small — he would 
be crushed; so it fell to the daughter’s lot to pro- 
cure the bread to feed three mouths. Her small, 
thin form lost in a large knitted jacket belonging 
to her father, a coarse hat pushed over her eyes, 
she waited, shivering, in the midst of the bustle and 
confusion, for the moment when the baker’s wife of 
Rue Francs Bourgeois thrust into her hands the 
loaf which her tiny fingers could scarcely hold. At 
last that poor child, who came so regularly, moved 
the woman’s pity. With the kindness of heart pe- 
culiar to her class, as soon as the little one appeared 
in the long line, she sent her the bread she had 
come to obtain. But one day, when the girl was 


CERMINIE LACERTEUX 


15 


about to take it from the boy’s hands, a woman in 
the crowd, jealous of the favor shown her, gave 
her such a kick with her wooden shoe that she was 
confined to her bed a month; Mile, de Varandeuil 
bore the mark of that blow through life. 

During that month the family would have starved 
had it not been for the supply of rice which one of 
their acquaintances. Countess d’Auteuil, had been 
fortunate enough to obtain, and which she gladly 
shared with the father and his two children. 

M. de Varandeuil saved himself from the revo- 
lutionary tribunal by his retired mode of life. He 
also disarmed suspicion by his animosity to the great 
personages at court. Whenever he had occasion 
to speak of the unhappy queen, he made use of such 
bitter, violent words, in a tone so sincere, that he 
impressed those around him as an enemy of roy- 
alty. At a Republican patriotic supper M. de^ 
Varandeuil had contrived to render himself perfectly 
safe. He told two of his companions at the table — 
ardent patriots, one of whom was leagued with 
Chaumette — that he was in great perplexity: his 
daughter had- only been baptized, and he would be 
very happy if Chaumette would enter her on the 
register of the municipality, and honor her with a 
name chosen by him from the Republican calendar 
of Greece or Rome. Chaumette at an early date 
appointed a meeting with the father. Forthwith 


u 


GERMWIE LACERTEUX 


Mile, de Varandeuil was led into the large hall, 
and after a metaphorical address, Chaumette chris- 
tened her Sempronie, a name which always clung 
to her. 

Somewhat reassured by that, the family lived 
through the terrible days which preceded the fall 
of Robespierre. (The 9th Thermidor afld the deliv- 
erance arrived?'! But poverty, dire and pressing, 
remained. The two children and their father had 
no means of subsistence but the income from a play 
which M. de Varandeuil had been inspired to 
write in 1791, and which proved to be the best 
effort of those times of woe when each tried to for- 
get death at night, when each wished to laugh to 
the last. Shortly that income, joined to the recov- 
ery of some debts, provided more than bread for 
the family. They left the Hotel du Petil Charalois, 
and took apartments in Rue du Chaume. 

That was the only change made. The daughter 
continued to work for the father and brother. M. 
de Varandeuil had by degrees grown accustomed to 
see in her the drudge she had become. {Vhe pa- 
rental eyes no longer recognized the daughter in 
the garb of a servant^ She was not of his blood, 
no one who had the honor of belonging to him: she 
was a domestic whom he had on his hands. He 
became so strongly imbued with this idea, and he 
found the service so convenient and so cheap, that 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


Vi 

in the coifrse of time it required a struggle with the 
man to induce him to replace his child by a maid, 
and to spare the young girl the humiliating work 
of a servant. 

Mme. de Varandeuil had refused to join her hus- 
band in Paris during the first years of the Revolu- 
tion. Soon they heard that she had remarried in 
Germany, producing as her husband’s certificate 
of death that of her brother-in-law, by substitut- 
ing the former’s Christian name for the latter’s. 
J^herefore the young girl grew to womanhood 
without care, without love, without a mother.”^ She 
was separated from her father by his selfishness, 
his violence of temper: her large, sorrowful heart, 
longing for affection, had no object to love?^ She 
saw that she inspired a kind of pity on account of 
her sallow complexion, her long nose, her plain- 
ness; she was conscious of her ugliness, of the lack 
of taste in her dress, for which her father grudg- 
ingly gave her the money?) She never received any 
allowance from him until she was thirty-five years 
old. 

/^What sadness, what bitterness, what loneliness, 
in a life passed with that morose old man, who 
was amiable only in the presence of strangers, who 
left her evening after evening to follow his own 
pleasures!^ He took her nowhere, except to the 
“Vaudeville,’^ where he had a box. She dreaded 

Germinie Lacerteux 2 


18 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


going out with him: she was in continual fear of 
an outbreak of his temper^ He invariably on 
such occasions would threaten some one with his 
cane, and haggle with the cabman. 

^n her solitude she had not her young brother: 
he was in the United State^ 

■Carriage was not to be thought of; her father 
looked upon it as an excuse for abandoning him. 
He opposed the subject so strongly that, even if an 
opportunity presented itself, his daughter dared not 
mention it to him. 

In the meantime our victories were robbing Italy. 
The masterpieces of Rome, Florence, and Venice 
pressed toward Paris. Italian art was in the 
ascendant. Collectors prized only works of the 
Italian school. In this movement M. de Varandeuil 
believed he had found a means of amassing wealth. 
He too had been seized with that artistic dilettan- 
teism which was the fashion among the nobility be- 
fore the Revolution. He had associated with artists; 
he liked pictures. He thought he would make a 
collection, and then sell it. Paris was full of objects 
of art. Every day he bought. Soon his small 
rooms were filled with old pictures so large that 
they could not be hung on the walls. CXhese were 
Raphaels, Vincis, Andrea del Sartos) His daughter, 
terrified at the ruin staring them in the face, remon- 
strated with him. M. de Varandeuil became angry, 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


19 


blushed to find so little appreciation of art in any 
one of his blood, and insisted that they would prove 
to be a fortune to him. The sale took place; it 
was a failure. (Overwhelmed not alone by the loss 
of his money, but by the slight put upon his judg- 
ment of the works of the masters, M. de Varandeuil 
informed his daughter that they were too poor to 
remain in Paris, and that they would be obliged to 
live in the country. Vainly did she attempt to 
change her father’s resolutioTJ. 

de Varandeuil rented a house at Isle Adam. 
There he was in the vicinity of several castles 
which were commencing to fill with their owners. 
Since the Revolution a small colony of wealthy 
merchants had established themselves in that part 
of the country. The name of de Varandeuil im- 
pressed those good people. They bowed low to 
him; they fought for the honor of his presence; 
they listened deferentially to his stories of society. 
In this retreat M. de Varandeuil intended to carry 


out a project, ^hat he had failed to do for the 
honor and glory of Italian art by means of his col- 
lection, he proposed to accomplish by means of 
historyr^ He knew something of the Italian lan- 
guage; he would give to the French public Vasari’s 
“Lives of the Painters,” would translate it with his 
daughter’s help. The burden of the work fell upon 
her; leaving her immersed in the volumes, he would 


20 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


take walks, visit his neighbors, and complain pa- 
thetically to them of the enormity of his undertak- 
ing. Then he would return home, listen to a trans- 
lated passage, pass judgment upon it, and return to 
his amusements. Sempronie was left as much to 
herself here as she had been in Paris. (Her pleasure 
was never consulted.") 

^To this new abode M. deVarandeuil had brought 
a servant, who very soon gained great power over 
his mind. 'vHer child he unfeelingly brought up in 
the house with his daughter?^ One day he insisted 
that the woman should take her seat at the table, 
and that Sempronie should wait upon her. Mile, 
de Varandeuil rebelled against the indignity, and 
threatened to leave the house did he not dismiss 
the. woman.') He finally complied with her de- 
mands, surprised at her mutiny. Sempronie after 
that cared for him more self-sacrificingly, more 
assiduously than ever. One last proof of her devo- 
tion was required of her. (The old man was seized 
with an apoplectic fit, which rendered him a help- 
less wreck; she bore patiently with his caprices, 
his selfishness, his reproaches.^ This lasted ten 
years, during which time Mile, de Varandeuil had 
no other solace than to lavish an almost maternal 
affection upon a newly married relative whose 
friendship she had formed while in Paris. (Every 
fortnight she visited that happy home, caressed 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


21 


the infant slumbering in its cradle, and dined with- 
out interruption; for toward the end of her 
father’s life, he would not even permit her to dine — 
he could not spare her from his side for so long a 
timerj He knew, he would say querulously, that 
it was not very amusing to tend an infirm old 
man, but that he would soon be gone. J^e passed 
away in i8i8; before dying he address^ no other 
words of farewell to her who had been a devoted 
daughter to him for forty years, but these: 
know very well that you never loved mePh 


(Two years after her father’s demise, Sempronie’s 
brother returned from AmericaT^ He brought with 
him a mulattress who had nursed him through the 
yellow fever, and whom he had married. Although 
she entertained a patrician’s ideas with regard to 
negroes, and looked upon the woman, with her pe- 
culiar dialect and her ignorance, ^s a species of 



Mile, de Varandeuil felt that those were 


the only family ties left her. 

^ M. de Varandeuil, to whom, on the return of the 
Bourbons, Comte d’ Artois had paid arrears, be- 
queathed ten thousand livres to his children. Her 
brother had only a pension of fifteen hundred francs 
from the United States. Mile, de Varandeuil calcu- 
lated that five or six thousand livres were not suffi- 
cient to maintain a household in which there were 
two children, so she proposed to add her income to 


22 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


his. (Her brother accepted her offer, and they took 
modest rooms on Rue de Clichy, where she led a 
quiet life, dressed simply, practiced economy, occu- 
pied the poorest room in the suite, and only spent 
for herself eighteen hundred or two thousand francs 
a year<:^ Soon, however, the mulattress grew jealous. 
She objected to the friendship existing between 
brother and sister.^ A sense of inferiority fanned 
the flame of her hate and rage. She encouraged 
her children to treat their aunt with insolence. 
Mile, de Varandeuil did not notice their first and 
second offenses, but the third time she punished 
them severely. Thereupon ensued a scene; the 
brother interposed, and peace was established for 
the time being, ^^ut insult followed insult, and a 
separation was decided upon.^ It was one of the 
greatest trials of Mile, de Varandeuil’s life to give 
up her dream of happiness by the side of the hap- 
piness of others. She did not move very far away, 
so that she could care for her brother if he were 
ill — see him, meet him; still there was a void in her 
heart and life. 

On cases of illness or trouble, she was always on 
hand; she deprived herself in order to help the 
poor;j her purse was always ready to dispense alms, 
not in the shape of money, for she feared the tav- 
ern, but to buy bread of the baker.y 



old lady! She to whom naught was left 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


23 


but the breath of life, had attained a serene phi- 
losophy^a haughty, almost ironical, stoicism; al- 
though exceedingly kind, one thing was yet lacking 
to perfect her kindness, and that was 
^ Never had she been able to bend her stern nature 
to that. QA wound that reached her heart, she 
never forgot; time nor death could not blot out 
its memory!^ 

(Religion she had none^ She had been reared in 
a time when there were no churches'?^ Mass had no 
existence when she was young. Her conscience 
had always been her faith, her accuser. She was 
a curious mixture of the two centuries in which she 
had lived; she did not respect the king, and she 
hated the people. ^ She advocated equality, but she 
had a horror of parvenus. She was at once a Re- 
publican and an aristocrats 

(Meanwhile, the years rolled by, bringing the 
Restoration and the monarchy of Louis Philippe. 
She saw her friends, her relatives, borne away one 
by one, while she remained, sorrowful and surprised 
that death had passed her byT' 




to her infirmities, she sat in her arm- 


chair day by day, living over the past. Once a week, 
however, she went out. Once a week, letting 
nothing, not even indisposition, interfere w'^h her, 
she visited the cemetery of Montmartre, where 
rested her father, her brother — those she had loved 


24 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


and whose sufferings had ceased before hers. For 
the dead and death she had an almost ancient 
reverence. The tomb was sacred to her. 

On the same day each week she would set out 
early with her maid, who gave her the support of 
her arm and carried her folding-chair. When near 
the cemetery she entered a florist’s whom she had 
patronized many years. There she would rest a 
while; then, loading Germinie with wreaths of 
immortelles, she proceeded to the cemetery and 
made her pilgrimage from tomb to tomb. She 
threw aside withered flowers, brushed away the 
dead leaves, adjusted fresh wreaths, and seated 
herself dreamily on her chair. Then she arose, 
turned as if to bid farewell to those she was leav- 
ing, walked on a few paces, stopped, muttered 
under her breath; and, her visit paid, she returned 
slowly, religiously, in silence, as if she feared to 
speak. 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


25 


III 

As she mused, Mile, de Varandeuil closed her 
eyes. The maid did not continue, and the story of 
her life, which was on her lips that night, was left 
untold. It was as follows: 

— .When Germinie Lacerteux arrived in Paris, her 
sisters were anxious to have her earn her own liv- 
ing, and procured her a situation in a cafe as maid- 
of-all-work. (xhe child, fresh from the country, 
became homesick.'^ She too felt the first instincts 
of modesty, and the woman within her revolted at 
the constant contact with menT^ Whenever she vis- 
ited her sisters there were tears, entreaties, scenes. 
Without complaining of anything in particular, she 
seemed to dread returning, saying that she could 
not remain there; that she was dissatisfied; that 
she would rather be with them. ^They replied 
that she had already cost them enough; that it 
was a caprice; that she was all right where she 
was, and took her back to the cafe in tears.'7 She 
dared not tell them all she had to undergo 
from the debauchees who frequented the place"^ At 
all times she was forced to endure the cowardly 


26 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


pleasantries and malicious tricks of those men who 
were delighted to find a martyr in the little, un- 
sophisticated country girl, timid and retiring, thinly 
and wretchedly clad in her rustic dress!^ They 
ridiculed her ignorance; they deceived and imposed 
upon her.^ Then again they called to her cheeks 
the blush of shame by the speeches which she did 
not wholly comprehend^ 

Crhe girl would have confided in her sisters had 
she dared. As with proper nourishment she grew 
plumper, her eyes brighter, and hej: cheeks more 
blooming, those men grew bolder!^ Ill-treated, 
scolded, brutally used by the proprietor of the 
establishment, who was in the habit of abusing his 
maids, and who wished them to have no dignity, 
the only kindness she received was shown her by 
this man’s wife.^ In consequence, she loved the 
woman devotedly, and served her with the fidelity 
of a dog.^ She ran all her errands without asking 
any questions; she carried letters to her lovers, and 
became quite an adept at the work.l She was 
agile and nimble; she ingeniously evaded the hus- 
band’s awakened suspicions, and without realizing 
what she was doing, what she was concealing, she 
took a mischievous delight in injuring the man who 
had caused her so much suffering. 

— -Among her comrades there was an old man, 
named Joseph, who protected her, who circum- 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


27 


vented the plots against her, and who checked with 
an almost paternal interest all impure conversation 
in her presence^ However, Germinie’s abhorrence 
of that house increased daily, and her sisters had 
often to take her back forcibly?) 

One day there was to be a grand review held on 
the Champ de Mars, and the waiters were granted 
leave of absence. Only Germinie and old Joseph 
were left in the cafe. Joseph was busy in a small, 
dark room, assorting soiled linen. ^He called Ger- 
minie to help him, and forcibly detained her. 

^J'he following day, when Joseph attempted to 
approach her, she recoiled from him in terror, and 
for some time thereafter if a man came near her 
she involuntarily trembled.'^ 

(In the course of several months, while visiting 
her sister, the portress, she was taken ill; medical 
consultation disclosed the’ caused) At first her sis- 
ters were confused; then their confusion turned to 
anger.^ They heaped blows and reproaches upon 
her.^ She suffered the blows; she did not attempt 
to defend nor excuse herself: she vaguely hoped 
they would kill her.) They proposed a court of 
justice, but she shrank from the thought of parad- 
ing her shame.N Once, when her mother’s memory 
was alluded to,'^ there was a light in her eyes which 
caused the two women qualms of conscience ;')they 
remembered that it was they who had placed her 


28 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


in the cafe, detained her there, exposed her, almost 
forced her to disgrace!^ 

That evening Germinie’s younger sister con- 
ducted her to Rue Saint Martin, to the house of the 
woman with whom she lodged. The two sisters 
slept upon the same mattress, and Germinie was 
forced to listen all night to the venomous jealousies 
which had always been deeply rooted in the other’s 
heart. In the day-time the landlady took posses- 
sion of her, catechised her, and preached to her. 

'^She remained in that house four months, a prisoner; 
at the end of that time, her trials were over, the 
child of dishonor dead!^ 

When restored to health, she entered the employ 
of a hair-dresser in Rue Lafitte. Two or three 
times she met old Joseph, who desired to marry 
her, but she escaped from him; the man was igno- 
rant of what had just occurred. 7 

,, In her new situation Germinie pined. The 
house in which she lived was what domestics call 
“a barrack.” Her mistress often went off for the 
day without leaving the maid any dinner. The 
young girl was almost starved. Her color left her, 
her eyes were encircled by deep rings, her lips took 
a purple hue. She grew emaciated and weak from 
lack of food.j 

--Her sister found her another position, this time 
in the house of an actor, a retired comedian, liv- 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


29 


ing on the money he had earned by making all 
Paris laugh. This kind man was old; he had 
never had any children. (He took pity on the 
miserable girl, interested himself in her, cared for, 
nursed her. '^He took her to the country. He 
walked with her in the bright sunshine, and saw 
her animation return."^ He delighted in her happi- 
ness.*^ Often, to amuse her, he would try to repro- 
duce some forgotten role. Jocisse seemed to her 
like a grandfather. At the end of several months 
he died, and Germinie, by the sudden death of Mile, 
de Varandeuil’s maid, entered her service in Rue 
Toitbout, in the same house in which her sister 
was portress. 


so 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


IV 

At the time of which we are writing, the Catholic 
religion sent out powerful roots into the depths 
of the people. The working-woman* of that day 
saw in the priest who listened to her confessions 
less the minister of God, the judge of her sins, the 
arbitrator of her salvation, than the confidant of 
her sorrows, the friend in distress. He would listen 
to her and comfort her as readily as he would the 
lady of fashion. 

Germinie on entering Mile, de Varandeuil’s serv- 
ice became very devout. Of her mistress, hardened 
by her own experiences of life, she could make no 
confidant, and soon the confessional became the 
sacred shrine of her most secret thoughts. 

The young priest to whom she confessed hu- 
mored her frequent visits; he did not disdain nor 
repulse the trust of a servant who confided in him 
as she would in a mother. The priest was young — 
he was handsome — he had lived in the world. A 
great sorrow had caused him to assume the garb of 
a priest. He felt a melancholy sympathy for the 
poor soul; but while she believed that the fervor 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


31 


of her religious zeal was for the sake of the Lord, 
he perceived that her adoration was for him. 

He tried to warn Germinie, to turn from himself 
that amorous attachment. He became more re- 
served and distant. One day, without any explana- 
tion, he sent her to another confessor. /Germinie 
only confessed once or twice to him, then she 
ceased coming; of all her religion, there only re- 
mained the memory of a certain douceur, like the 
odor of burnt incense.'^ 

She was with mademoiselle when she fell ill. 
During that time Germinie did not go to mass. On 
the first Sunday that the old lady had no need of 
her presence, she was surprised to find that her 
“devotee” remained at home. 

“Ah,” said she to her, “you do not go to see 
your pastor any more; what has he done to you.?” 

“Nothing,” Germinie replied. 


32 


GERM INI E LACERTEUX 


V 

^Here I am, mademoiselle! Look at me,” said 
Germinie. 

Several months had passed. She had obtained 
her mistress’ permission to attend a ball that even- 
ing in celebration of the marriage of the grocer’s 
sister, who had chosen her as maid of honor, and 
she had come to show herself in her finery, in her 
muslin dress. 

Mademoiselle raised her head from the old book 
printed in large type which she was reading, took 
off her spectacles, laid them between the pages to 
mark her place, and said: 

“You, my bigot, at a ball! Do you know, girl, 
that seems like a farce! By my faith, you will 
have no lack of admirers. But you must not 
marry; I will not keep you; I will not be your 
children’s slave. Come nearer; you are quite co- 
quettish.” 

“Oh, no, mademoiselle,” Germinie began. 
/^“Men are fine creatures,” continued Mile, de 
Varandeuil; “they will use what you have, without 
taking into account the blows. \ Marriage! ah, I 






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GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


33 


am sure that you will give up all idea of it when 
you see others, j Now turn around, that I may 
look at you,” 4aid mademoiselle in her abrupt 
voice; and putting her thin hands on the arms of 
her chair, patting her feet upon the floor, she be- 
gan to inspect Germinie and her dress. 

(What, is it you.?” she said, after several mo- 
ments of silence. “I have never looked at you so 
closely. Good God, yes! Ah, but — but — ” she 
muttered some indistinct words between her teeth, 
and resumed her examination of the girl.^ 
^^erminie was not handsome. Her hair, of a 
dark chestnut, which seemed almost black, curled 
untractably; rebellious locks escaped from their 
place, in spite of the use of pomade. Her low 
forehead projected over her small, watchful, scintil- 
lating eyes. These were neither brown nor blue; 
they were of an indefinable and changing gray — a 
gray which was not a color, but a light. Emotion 
brightened them with the fire of fever, pleasure 
with the flash of intoxication, passion with a phos- 
phorescence. The greatest detriment to her ap- 
pearance was the distance between her mouth and 
nose, which was short and upturned, with dis- 
tended nostrilsT) That disproportion gave an almost 
sinister character to the lower part of her face, 
while her large mouth, with its white teeth and 
full lips, smiled a peculiar and vaguely irritating 

Germinie Lacerteux j 


34 


GERM Ih! IE LACERTEUX 


smile. Her low bodice disclosed her neck, her 
bosom, her shoulders, the whiteness of which con- 
trasted with her sun-burnt face. Her arms hung 
by her side; they were round and smooth, with 
pretty dimpled elbows; her wrists were delicate, 
her hands as soft and her nails as shapely as those 
of a lady.^ 

There, was a peculiar charm about this plain 
woman. Her mouth, her eyes, her very ugliness, 
was attractive. During Mile, de Varandeuil’s in- 
spection of her, Germinie bent over her and kissed 
her hand. 

“Well, well, that will do,” said mademoiselle. 
“Go along, enjoy yourself, and try not to be very 
late.” 

When Mile, de Varandeuil was left alone, she 
poked the embers with the tongs, rested her elbows 
on her knees, and gazed meditatively into the fire. 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


35 


VI 

I In speaking of marriage to Germinie, Mile, de 
Varandeuil had touched the key-note of her unhap- 
piness. Family troubles, however, snatched her 
away from her own trials. 

Her brother-in-law formed intemperate habits, 
used up his business profits, and ran into debt. 
His wife, in order to help him and to free him 
from debt, applied for and obtained a situation as 
box-opener at the Theatre Historique. In the 
course of a few months she contracted a severe 
cold, and died, leaving a sickly child three years 
old. The father went into the country to borrow 
some money; while there he married again, and 
nothing more was heard of him. 

Coming from her sister’s funeral, Germinie rode 
with an old woman who lived by those means which 
keep so many of the poor of Paris from starvation.^ 
CNow she cut hair for brushes; now she sold ginger- 
breaSX In Lent she rose at four o’clock and se- 
cured a chair at Notre Dame, which, when the 
people began to arrive, she would sell for ten or 
twelve sous?! In order to heat the hole in which 


36 


GERMINIB LACERTEUX 


she lived in Rue Saint Victor, she would go at 
nightfall and pull off the bark from the trees of 
the Luxembourg. Germinie, who knew her from 
having given her crusts of bread every week, rented 
a room in the sixth story of their house, and in- 
stalled her therein with the little girl., 
pShe acted impulsively; her sister’s unkindness to 
her she no longer remembered. Germinie had 
only one thought — her niece. She wished her to 
recover — to be saved from death by care. When- 
ever she had a spare moment she climbed to the 
sixth story, fondled the child, gave her some tea, 
arranged her pillows, and descended out of breath, 
but radiant with delight. Germinie spared noth- 
ing, but procured the little one every luxury; her 
wages were spent in that way. Finally the child 
was pronounced out of danger.) 

One morning, Germinie’s other sister, who had 
married a mechanic, came to bid her farewell: her 
husband was going to join some comrades about 
to embark for Africa. She proposed taking her 
sister’s child with her, and bringing it up with her 
own. They would pay all expenses; Germinie need 
only furnish the money for the voyage. She ought 
to agree to the separation on her mistress’ account. 
She too was the orphan’s aunt. She brought 
every argument to bear to persuade Germinie to 
let her have the child, calculating that, once in 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


37 


Africa, she could move Germinie’s pity, obtain 
from her her wages-^rob both her heart and her 
purs^j 

Separation from her niece meant a great deal to 
the maid; the child had become a part of her ex- 
istence; she had snatched her from disease — that 
life was owing to her care. 

She knew, on the other hand, that she could 
never bring her to her own home-^hat mademoi- 
selle, at her advanced age, could not have a prat- 
tling baby around her^) Scandalous tongues, too, 
were busy circulating the report that the little one 
was Germinie’s. ) The latter asked her mistress’ 
advice; she counseled her to confide her niece to 
her sister, putting before her all the difficulties as 
to the charge of her, and giving her money to de- 
fray the expense of the journey. 

The separation was a great blow to Germinie. 

CHaving no longer her niece, her heart yearned for 
love in her spirit of loneliness, she turned again 
to the church for comfort. Three months later 
she received the intelligence of her sister’s death. 
The husband drew in his letter a pitiful picture of 
his position; the expense of interment had been 
large, the fever prevented him from working; he 
alluded in touching terms to the two small children 
left motherless. V Germinie shed bitter tears on the 
receipt of that letter.^ She pitied the poor man, 


38 


GERMINIE L/iCERTEUX 


alone in a strange country; she fancied she could 
hear the children calling her, but she could not de- 
cide to go to them. 

Mile, de Varandeuil, seeing her maid so pensive 
and sad, questioned her as to the cause, but in 
vain. Germinie would not tell her. She vacillated 
between what seemed to her duty on the one hand, 
and ingratitude on the other — between her sister’s 
children and her mistress. She could not leave 
mademoiselle. Then, again, she told herself that 
God would not wish her to desert her family. She 
glanced around the room and said, “I must 
go!” 

She feared mademoiselle might be taken ill if she 
left her; the thought if another maid succeeded 
her, aroused her jealousy. At other times, religion 
prompted self-sacrifice, and she was ready to devote 
her life to her brother-in-law. As she called to 
mind his coarseness, his intemperate habits, his 
harsh treatment of her sister, she dreaded the po- 
sition. , 

At a word, at a gesture, of mademoiselle’s, her 
plans all melted away; she felt bound to her mis- 
tress forever; an indescribable terror possessed her 
at the thought of separating her life from hers. 

Two years glided by. One day, by chance, Ger- 
minie heard that her niece had died several weeks 
after her sister; her brother-in-law had kept the 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


39 


death from her/hoping to influence her and to per- 
suade her to come to him in Africa, in order to gain 
possession of her few paltry sous.^l 


40 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


VII 

About this time, a small milk-shop near Mile, de 
Varandeuil’s apartments changed hands, in conse- 
quence of a sale of the contents by the sheriff. 
The shop was repainted, the front windows deco- 
rated with gilt letters; pyramids of chocolate, flow- 
ers, and liquor glasses. 

The woman who had rented the creamery was 
a person of about fifty years of age, inclined to 
stoutness, but still preserving signs of beauty. It 
was reported in the neighborhood that she had 
started herself in business with the money left her 
by an old gentleman whose servant she had been 
until his death. She was a native of the same 
place as Germinie — not of the same village, but 
of a small settlement in its vicinity. The stout 
woman was complimentary and caressing. (She 
addressed everyone as “my dear.^ She detested 
vulgarity, blushed at trifles^ She delighted in se- 
crets; her life was spent in gossiping and weeping 
When she had eaten heartily, she would cry, “I 
am going to die!”) She shed tears when any one 
died, when the milk turned; she wept over differ- 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


41 


ent occurrences of the day-^she wept for the sake 
of weepingQ 

Germinie was very soon moved to pity for that* 
tearful creature. She spent hours in the shop; 
she felt drawn toward the woman. ( Their intimacy 
was knit more closely by all the mysterious bonds 
of friendship between those women of the people — 
by the continual gossiping7}the daily exchange of 
^he nothings of life,^ the naps side by side and 
chair by chair. 


42 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


VIII 

/HMme. Jupillon, who claimed to have been mar- 
ried and signed herself “Widow Jupillon,” h?,d one 
son, still a boy. She had sent him to Saint Nico- 
las, to that religious educational home where, for 
thirty francs a month, the rudiments of an educa- 
tion and a trade were taught to the children of the 
lower classes. Germinie always accompanied Mme. 
Jupillon on Thursdays when she visited Bibi. The 
visit afforded her distraction, and she was contented 
to mount to the top of the omnibus with a large 
basket of provisions, which she took charge of 
during the ride. 

Mother Jupillon met with an accident one day, 
and was not able to walk for eighteen months; so 
Germinie went to Saint Nicolas alone, and being 
always ready to help others, she took as much in- 
terest in the boy as if she were related to him. 
She never missed a Thursday, and always came 
with her hands full of cakes, fruit, and sweets she 
had bought. She kissed the urchin, satisfied her- 
self as to his health, looked to see if he had his 
knitted vest under his blouse, and made him show 
her the soles of his shoes, to see if they needed 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


43 


mending. She inquired if they were satisfied with 
him, if he studied, if he had good marks. (She 
talked to him of his mother, and admonished him 
to love God.) Until the clock struck two, she walked 
in the court-yard with him: the child offered her 
his arm, proud to be seen with a lady better dressed 
than the majority of those who came thither — with 
a lady in silk.j) 

_He was eager to learn to play the flageolet — it 
would only cost five francs a month, he said. His 
mother had refused to give him the money. Ger- 
minie secretly brought him the hundred sous a 



It, too, was humiliating to him to wear 


the blouse of his uniform when he came home for 
his vacation. On his birthday, Germinie placed 
a large bundle before him: it contained a coat 
which she had bought for him. There were 
scarcely twenty of his comrades whose parents 
could afford to buy them such luxuries. 

()She spoiled him thus several years, leaving no 
wish ungratified, encouraging in the boy the pride 
and caprices of the wealthy, softening for him the 
privations and hardships of his school-life. 

Meanwhile, the boy grew to manhood. Germinie 
did not realize it; she still looked upon him as a 
child. (As was her habit, she always stooped to 
kiss him.'^ 

One day she was summoned by the abbe who 


44 


GERM IN IE L/iCERTEUX 


was at the head of the school. The abbe pro- 
posed expelling Jupillon. (Vorbidden literature had 
been found in his possession. Germinie, trembling 
at the thought of the punishment the boy would 
receive from his mother if he returned home, begged, 
prayed, implored; she finally obtained pardon for 
the culprit. 

On returning to Jupillon, she was about to take 
him to task, but at the first word of reprimand Bibi 
cast upon her a glance and a smile, in which there 
was none of the innocence of a child. (^Her eyes 
fell, and it was she who blushec^^ Two weeks 
passed ere she again visited Saint Nicolas. 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


45 


IX 

About the time when young Jupillon had com- 
pleted his studies, the maid on the floor below Ger- 
minie often came with the latter to spend an even- 
ing at Mme. Jupillon ’s. Very soon she came every 
night. ^ She paid for cakes and wine for all, amused 
herself with little Jupillon, told him to his face that 
he was handsome, and treated him like a child. 
The young man, proud of and pleased at the atten- 
tion shown him by the first woman who ever 
noticed him, in a short while showed a decided 
preference for Adele, as she was called. 

(^erminie grew passionately jealous.') Jealousy 
was the ground- work of her nature^) Those whom 
she loved she must possess absolutely She would 
not permit them to give to others an iota of their 
affections.^ In short, her heart was exacting and 
despotic. ; Giving all, she required all. Germinie’s 
jealousy turned to rage when she saw the woman 
establish herself in the shop and make herself fa- 
miliar with the young man. ^ Her hatred of the 
shameless creature, who could be seen every Sun- 
day on the boulevards with soldiers, increased.) 
She employed every possible means to have Mme. 


46 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


Jupillon drive her away; but she had become one 
of her best customers, and the woman refused to 
expel her. 

' Germinie then applied to the son, but he only 
redoubled his attentions in her presence, if for no 
other reason than to see Germinie’s “nose turn up,” 
as he expressed it, and to enjoy wounding her. 
Soon Germinie divined the woman’s intentions; 
she knew what she wanted with that “child” — for 
he was still a child to her, notwithstanding his 
seventeen years. From that time she followed the 
couple everywhere. She did not leave them alone 
a moment; she accompanied them to parties, to 
the theater, into the country, on all their walks, 
trying to restrain Adele, and to inspire her with a 
sense of modesty, by saying in a low voice: ‘(A 
child! have you no shame.?” while the woman re- 
plied by a burst of coarse laughter. 

■^She tried to put an end to this infatuation; un- 
wearyingly she separated them, kept them apart. 
She thrust herself between them; she intercepted 
their hands when about to touch, their lips when 
about to meet. She felt upon her cheeks the 
breath of the kisses she had prevented. Against 
her will, and possessed with a certain horror, she 
in her heart secretly participated in those embraces, 
those desires; while her efforts each day lessened 
the young man’s respect for and reserve toward 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


47 


her. There came a day when she was less severe 
with herself than she had been; that day she did 
not shun his advances so abruptly — she was ex- 
hausted with suffering. (Love had slowly entered 
her own heart, and, bruised with jealousy, she made 
no resistance. ^ But she did not dream of belonging 
to him. She was lost in the depths of devotion, 
asking nothing of her lover but a caress.^ 


43 


GERM m IE LACERTEUX 


X 

(rhat blissful but unsatisfactory love produced a 
singular change in Germinie^ She was filled with 
a healthy glow; her blood coursed freely through 
her veins. She was wonderfully animated; the 
nervous energy which had sustained her gave place 
to activity, to mirth) She no longer had any ail- 
ments.'^ Contrary to her custom, she awoke in the 
mornings refreshed; she dressed herself hastily, her 
fingers moved nimbly, and she was astonished to 
find herself so full of life, of spirits.") 

(^During the day she felt the same happiness, the 
same gayety; she felt the necessity of walking, of 
running, of continual action. "7 Her past experiences 
seemed to have faded away. She went up and 
down stairs for nothing. When she was seated 
her feet patted the floor impatiently. She scrubbed, 
cleaned, set to rights, washed without ceasing — 
always at work, going in and out! ") 

“My gracious!” said her mistress to her, dis- 
turbed by the noise; “are you crazy, Germinie.?^^ 
Another day, on entering the kitchen, mademoi- 
selle saw some earth in a cigar-box in the sink. 


GERM INI E LACERTEUX 


49 


“What is that?” she asked. 

“That is grass which I have sowed,” said Ger- 
minie. “You like grass, do you not? Your canary- 
birds shall no longer be without it.” 



Germinie Lacerteux 4 


50 


GERMmiE LACERTEUX 


XI 

,.^Most of Germinie’s time was spent in the cream- 
ery. Her duties at mademoiselle’s did not tie her 
down, and left her a great deal of leisure. A cutlet 
or a whiting was all she had to cook. In the even- 
ing, mademoiselle, instead of detaining her at home 
to keep her company, preferred sending her for a 
walk, to get the air. All she asked of her was to 
be in by ten o’clock, to assist her to retire. When 
Germinie was late, she disrobed alone. 

The former devoted all of her leisure to the peo- 
ple in the creamery; she took her coffee there in 
the morning, remained until nine o’clock, when 
she returned to prepare mademoiselle’s chocolate; 
from breakfast until dinner she found pretexts for 
several visits to the shop, stopping and chatting 
invariably. 

“What a magpie you are!” said mademoiselle 
to her, in a snappish voice, with smiling eyes. 

At half-past five, the cloth having been removed, 
she again found her way to Mme. Jupillon’s, re- 
mained there until ten o’clock, climbed five flights 
of stairs, and in five minutes undressed her mis- 


GERM INI £ UCERTEUX 


51 


.tress, who was somewhat surprised to see her in 
such great haste to retire; she could remember the 
time when Germinie liked to doze in the arm-chairs, 
and never could be persuaded to go to her chamber. 

The candle was scarcely extinguished in mademoi- 
selle’s room when Germinie was again at Mme. 
Jupillon’s, that time to remain until midnight; she 
often did not leave until the policeman, seeing the 
light, tapped on the shutters.) 

(f^'In order to be always there — to have the right of 
being there — never to be out of sight of the man 
she loved, to watch, to guard him — she had be- 
come the servant of the house. She swept the 
shop; she prepared the meals and the dog’s por- 
ridge. She waited upon the son; she made his 
bed, she brushed his clothes, she cleaned his boots, 
happy and proud to touch that which belonged to 
him, willing to kiss the very dust from his feet.)'; 

She did the work, she kept the shop, she served 
the customers. Mme. Jupillon depended on her 
for everything; and while the girl toiled and drudged, 
the coarse woman, giving herself the airs of a lady, 
seated in a chair on the sidewalk, inhaling the fresh 
air, jingled in her pocket beneath her apron the 
profits of the day.^ 


62 


GBRMtyilE L/tCERTEUX 


XII 


^^When spring arrived, Germinie asked Jupillon 
almost every evening, “Shall we go to the entrance 
to the fields?” Jupillon would don his black and 
red checked flannel shirt, his cap of black velvet, 
and they would set out for the place called by the 
people of that quarter “the entrance to the fields.” 
/ They walked along the Chaussee Clignancourt 
with a concourse of Parisians, hurrying on to drink 
in a breath of air. The heat had abated; the set- 
ting sun gilded the house-tops and chimneys with 
its rays. At Chateau Rouge they saw the first tree, 
the first leaves. At Rue du Chateau the scene burst 
upon them with dazzling beauty. The country, in 
the distance, lay before them bathed in a flood of 
gold. Swallows circled joyously above their heads. 
The birds twittered gayly. With delight Germinie 
listened to that music; she saw women at the 
windows, men in their shirt-sleeves in the gardens, 
mothers on the door-steps, with their children on 
their knees. ^ 

^When the pavement ceased. In its stead was a 
wide, white, chalky, dusty road, made of debris 


GERM W IE LACERTEUX 


US 


of rubbish, of pieces of iimestone and brick, fur- 
rowed into great ruts made by the large wheels of 
wagons loaded with stone. People' were coming 
and going; it was an amusing sight. Germinie 
passed women carrying their husbands’ canes, girls 
hanging upon their brothers’ arms, old women 
walking with folded arms, resting from their labors. 
Workmen pushed their children in perambulators, 
boys came with their fishing-tackle. (^No one hur- 
ried; all were enjoying happy idleness.^ Behind 
Montmartre they found some herbage ripened by 
the sun. Germinie liked to see the carders at 
work, the horses at pasture, the soldiers playing 
bowls, the children flying their black kites against 
the clear sky. 

At the end of this road they turned to cross the rail- 
road bridge, past the rag-pickers’ settlement. They 
hastened by the hovels, built of stolen materials. 
Germinie felt vaguely terrified. But at the fortifi- 
cations her delight returned. She seated herself 
on the slope with Jupillon. Near by were fami- 
lies in groups, workmen lying full-length upon the 
ground, gentlemen examining the heavens with a 
telescope, fj)hilosophers in distress, their coats shiny 
with age, their hats as rusty as their beards.^' 

Before them was an odd panorama: white 
blouses, blue aprons, cafes, wine-shops, fruit- 
stands, shooting-galleries, from which arose tn- 


54 


GERM INI E LACERTEUX 


colored poles. To their right lay Saint Denis; to 
their left, beyond a row of houses which eclipsed it, 
the sun was setting gorgeously above Saint Ouen. 

dr way through the gate, 



Lorraine, the venders of 


waffles, public-houses, arbors without foliage, in 
which a crowd of men, women, and children were 
eating fried potatoes, mussels, and shrimps. Then 
they reached the first field, the first green meadow, 
on the edge of which stood a table filled with 
ginger-bread, mint pastilles, and hot cocoa. 

-A strange place! where the smell of dripping 
mingled with the evening air, the bustle round 
about with the silence of the heavens, the odor of 
the dry soil with the scent of the corn-fields — 
immorality with Nature! ) 

Nevertheless, Germinie was content. Nearing 
the edge of the corn-field, she inhaled its balm. 

They returned and reascended the slope. The sun 
had disappeared; the sky was gray along the hori- 
zon, pink above that, and still above that of a bluish 
tint. Over the verdure were cast the shadows of 
darkness, the throng looked indistinct; white took 
the hue of blue. Everything was effaced by the 
death of day, and when the shadows deepened, 
began the orgies of the night. On the slope the 
grass waved in the breeze. 

Germinie and Jupillon turned their steps home- 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


5i» 

ward; the former seeing everything indistinctly on 
the way, wearied by the hard road, but content to 
be weary, almost fainting — she still was happy. 


56 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


XIII 

^^Vhen Mme. Jupillon saw Germinie, her face 
beamed with delight; she kissed her with effusion, 
she addressed her in a caressing tone, she looked 
at her with fondness. The woman was almost ma- 
ternal in her tenderness. She gave Germinie an 
insight into her business affairs, into all her secrets. 
She seemed to trust in her as in a person of her 
own blood. When she spoke of the future she 
always included Germinie as one from whom she 
could never be separated. Often she would smile 
mysteriously, as if she saw all that was going on, 
and was not displeased. Sometimes, too, when 
her son was seated beside Germinie, turning on 
them her tender, tearful eyes — the eyes of a mother 
— she would embrace them both with a look which 
seemed to bless and unite her children!^ 

Without uttering a word that could compromise 
her, and repeating that her son was much too young 
to marry, sHe encouraged Germinie’ s hopes and 
illusions by her attitude toward her, her looks of 
secret indulgence, by her silence when she seemed 
to open to her the arms of a mother. Employing 





GERMIhllE LACERTEUX 


57 


all her powers of deceit, this woman succeeded in 
overcoming, by a tacit promise of marriage, Ger* 
minie’s last scruples. 

In all this the wretched woman only aimed at 
one thing-~to attach to herself a servant who would 
cost her nothing^ 


58 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


XIV 

day, as Germinie was descending the back 
staircase, she heard a voice call to her over the 
balusters; it was Adele, who asked her to bring 
her two sous’ worth of butter, and ten of bitters. 

“Now, you must rest a moment,” said Adele to 
her when she returned. “We never see you any 
more; you never come here. Come! you have 
plenty of time to spend with your old lady. I 
could not exist with such an antichrist-like 
creature as she is! Sit down. There is no work to 
be done to-day. Madame is in bed. When there 
is no money, madame lies down all day and reads 
novels. Will you have some.^” and she held to- 
ward Germinie the bottle of bitters. “No.^ Ah, I 
remember now, you do not drink. It is strange 
not to drink — you make a mistake. Will you, then, 
write a few words for me to my lover. I have 
told you about him. Wait, here is madame’s pen 
and some of her perfumed paper.” 

Germinie was about to begin the letter. 

,^“Say, Germinie, you have not heard of madame’s 
odd fancy, have you.? It is indeed an odd fancy 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


59 


for a woman like her, who can choose associates 
from among the best; but, my dear, madame is 
smitten with that Jupillon. We needed nothing 
but that to die of hunger!” 

Germinie, her pen ready upon the paper, stared 
fixedly at Adele. 

Adele’s face fairly beamed on perceiving Ger- 
minie’s discomposure. 

^liAh! it is comical; but true, nevertheless,” she 
continued, sipping her bitters. “She noticed the 
fellow in the shop door the other day, when she 
was returning from the races. She has been in 
the shop two or three times, under the pretext of 
making some purchases. Well, now, my letter! 
Has what I have said annoyed you.^* I really be- 
lieve you do not want any one to come near the 
little fellow! Absurd!” 

And as Germinie made a gesture of denial, Adele 
cried: 

“Such a milk-sop, too! He is not my style; but 
that is your business. And now, my letter.?” 

Germinie bent over the sheet of paper; but she 
was agitated, her nervous fingers could scarcely 
guide the pen. 

“There!” cried she, after the lapse of several 
minutes, throwing it aside. “I do not know what 
ails me to-day. I will write for you some other 
time.” 


60 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


‘‘As you will, my dear. But I shall count upon 
you. Come to-morrow. I will tell you of madame’s 
goings-on, and we will have a good laugh!” 

When the door closed, Adele burst out laughing; 
her little ruse had disclosed to her Germinie’s 
secret.^^'^V^ 


GBRMINIE LACERTBUX 


61 


XV 

^Lovc was only to young Jupillon the gratifica- 
tion of an evil passion, which sought in the posses- 
sion of woman the right and the pleasure of scorn- 
ing her."^ Loving words, caresses, tender thoughts, 
had no existence for him.') In place of those he 
substituted the heartless instincts of libertinism 
awakened within him by coarse literature, com- 
panions, and conversation. The love of woman 
seemed to him something forbidden, illicit, gross, 
cynical, and ludicrous — an excellent thing for irony 
and disillusion; woman was to him only an object 
of degradation.^ 

CThat peculiar type of sneering, impertinent Paris- 
ian was embodied in him. Jupillon had a wicked 
mouth — cruelty lurked in its corners; upon his 
small, clear-cut, insolent features was stamped a 
certain air of boastfulness, of energy, of careless- 
ness, of intelligence, of impudence — all sorts of 
knavish expressions, which at times were tempered 
by an air of feline cajolery His trade of glove- 
cutter — he had fixed upon that after two or three 
unsuccessful apprenticeships — the habit of working 


62 


GERMlhllE LACERTEUX 


where he was seen by passers-by, had strengthened 
his assurance. In his workshop, on the street, 
with his white shirt, his black cravat a la Colin, 
his tight trousers, he assumed conscious airs and 
graces. All those affectations — the hair parted in 
the middle, the collar thrown back, disclosing the 
neck — seemed to Germinie marks of distinction. 
/Thus constituted, incapable of love, of senti- 
ment, Jupillon was very much annoyed and bored 
by that admiration, which steadily increased. Ger- 
minie wearied him. He looked upon her humility, 
her devotion, as ridiculous. He was tired of it, 
disgusted with it — it was insupportable. ^He had 
enough of her love, enough of herself."^ It was not 
long before he cast her off without pity, without 
charity. He avoided her; he did not keep his ap- 
pointments; he plead business — the press of work. 
When she expected him in the evening, he did 
not come; she thought him busy, while he was at 
some billiard-hall or ball. ] 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


63 


XVI 

/^here was a ball at the “Boule Noire. The 
hall presented the appearance of a resort of pleas- 
ure of the “people.” ^t was bright with sham and 
paltry luxury."^ There were to be seen paintings 
and wine-tables, gilt chandeliers and vari-colored 
tumblers from which to drink brandy, velvet hang- 
ings and wooden benches — the rusticity of a tavern 
mounted in the scenery of a card-board palace. 
^Lambrequins of garnet velvet, with gilt fringe, 
adorned the windows. On the walls, in large 
white panels, pastorals alternated with the seasons, 
astonished to find themselves there. Over the 
windows and doors dropsical cupids sported among 
roses. Square posts ornamented with arabesques 
supported the hall, in the center of which an oc- 
tagonal platform had been built for the orchestra. 
An oaken railing, breast-high, inclosed the space for 
dancers; outside that barrier, tables painted green, 
and wooden seats were packed closely together 
in two rows, surrounding the ball-room with a cafe. 
Within the inclosure, in the glaring light of the 


64 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


gas, were seated all sorts of women, faded and 
wrinkled — women in black net bonnets, women in 
black paletots and fur tippets — tradeswomen and 
shop-keepers. Among this throng not a youthful 
face — not a vestige of color about those women, 
sombre even to their boots, all dressed in the colors 
of distress. (3'hat absence of color gave to them 
the stamp of poverty; to all the faces a sad and 
dull expression. 

The men wore overcoats, caps on the back of 
their heads, woolen comforters, untied, streaming 
behind them. ^Those in hats, redingotes, and col- 
ored shirts, looked like insolent servants and stable- 
boys. ^ 

The dancers threw themselves about, twisted and 
capered, enlivened by the lashes of a brutal joy..^ 
-^Here it was that Germinie entered at the moment 
that the quadrille ended to the tune of “La Cas- 
quette du Pere Bugeaud,” in which the cymbals, 
post-bells, and drum added their din to the com- 
motion. With one glance she swept the hall — all 
the men were bringing back their partners to the 
seats marked by their caps. She had been de- 
ceived; he was not there — she did not see him. 
She entered the inclosure and seated herself on 
the edge of a bench, trying to appear at ease. She 
judged the women seated near her to be servants 
like herself; such companions intimidated her less 



4 . 











G^RMlNlE LACERTEUX 


65 


than those little dancers with their hands in the 
pockets of their paletots, their bold eyes, and sing- 
ing lips. 

^ Soon, however, even on her bench, she attracted 
malevolent attention. Her hat — not more than a 
dozen women in the room wore hats — the gold 
brooch in her shawl, aroused hostile curiosity. 

^^They cast upon her glances, smiles, which boded 
her evil.^ All the women seemed to be inquiring 
whence the new arrival came, and to be positive 
that she had come to take away the lovers of others7> 
Those promenading in the hall, as if ready for a 
waltz — their arms about their partners’ waists — 
passing in front of her, caused her to lower her 
eyes as they walked away with a shrug of their 
shoulders. k3he changed her seat, but she encount- 
ered the same smiles, the same hostility, the same 
whisperings.^ She walked to the end of the hall; 
the eyes of every woman followed her^ She felt 
herself to be the object of envious, malicious 
glances/ She blushed. For several moments she 
feared she would burst into tears. She longed to 
leave the room, but she lacked the courage to 
cross the hall alone. 

QHer eyes mechanically followed an old woman 
slowly making a tour of the room, with a step as 
noiseless as the evolutions of a night-hawk. A 
black hat was perched upon her gray hair; from 

Germinie Lacerteux ^ 


66 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


heu high, square shoulders hung a Scotch tartan 
in somber colors. Arrived at the door, she cast a 
last glance at the hall, taking it all in with the 
eye of a vulture which is in search of but finds 


no food.'^ 


As Germinie turned her head, she espied Jupil- 
lon: he was there, seated at a green table between 



One was a tall blonde. 


two women, 


with curly, flaxen hair, insipid face, and full eyes; 
she wore a plaited waist of red flannel, and her 
hands were thrust into the pockets of the black 
apron which she wore over her red skirt. The 
other — short, dark, and very rosy — was muffled co- 
quettishly in a white woolen hood with a blue 
border.} 



had recognized Germinie. When he 


saw her rise and advance toward him, her eyes 
fixed upon him, he ' whispered something to the 
woman in the hood, and, placing his elbows on the 
table, he waited. 

“Indeed! you herei*” said he, when Germinie 
stopped before him, mute, erect, motionless. “This 
is a surprise! Waiter, another bowl!’' and empty- 
ing the sweetened wine into the tumblers before 
the two women, he continued: “Come, sit down!” 

But Germinie did not stir. 

“Melie,” said she of the hood to her companion, 
“do you not see.? It is monsieur’s mother. Make 


GERM W IE LACERTEUX 


67 


room for the lady, for she will surely drink with 
us.” 

Germinie cast upon the woman an annihilating 
glance. 

“What!” resumed the woman, “did I vex you.? 
Excuse me. I have perhaps made a mistake. 
How old do you think she is, Melie.? My faith, 
you make youthful selections!” 

Jupillon smiled covertly and sneered. 

“I have something to say to you — to you — but 
not here; below,” said Germinie to him. 

“What charms!” remarked the hooded woman, 
relighting the cigar Jupillon had forgotten. 

“What do you want.?” asked Jupillon, moved, in 
spite of himself, by Germinie’s tone. 

“Come!” and she preceded him out of the room, 
through the bustle and the confusion of tongues?' 


68 


CERMINIE LACERTEUX 


XVII 


(^pillon 


promised Germinie to frequent those 
haunts no more. But the young man had estab- 
lished a reputation at resorts of that kind; the ball 
was not alone the ball to him — it was a theater, 
an audience, popularity, applause, and the flat- 
tering murmur of his name among the groups 
assembled. 

^/Sunday he did not visit the ^‘Boule Noire;” but 
the following Thursday he turned his steps thither, 
and Germinie, seeing that she could not restrain 
him, determined to follow him, and to remain . 
there as long as he remained." Seated at a 
table in the main but less brilliantly lighted 
part of the hall, she watched him during the 
dances; the quadrille ended, if he loitered, 
she went in search of him, and drew him almost 
forcibly from the clutches of the wretched 
women who surrounded him?) As soon as these 
women became accustomed to the sight of her, 
their insults were no longer whispered as at the 
first ball."^ She was attacked, ridiculed to her face."^ 
She was forced to bear their mockery, which singled 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


her out; the words “old maid,” which the hussies 
cast at her over their shoulders as they passed.^ 

Then, again, those invited by Jupillon to drink 
with him, brought by him to the table at which she 
was seated, drinking the warm wine for which she 
paid, leaned their heads upon their hands, rested 
their elbows on the table, seeming not to notice 
that another woman was there, not even replying 
when she addressed them.) Germinie could have 
killed those creatures who treated her with such 
contempt."^ 

At length her powers of endurance were ex- 
hausted; aroused by the humiliations she had been 
forced to submit to, she resolved to dance too. 

(^hat was the only means left her of keeping her 
lover from the others — of gaining her point.') An 
entire month she practiced the figures, the steps, 
in secret. At the end of that time, she ventured 
on it; but everything served to put her out, added 
to her embarrassment and awkwardness — the hos- 
tile people among whom she was, the smiles of 
surprise and pity visible upon their faces when she 
took her place within the inclosure.") She was 
scoffed at to such an extent that she had not the 
courage to recommence. She gloomily installed 
herself in her dark corner, only leaving its shade 
to seek and bring thither Jupillon, with the mute 


70 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


force of a wife who snatches her husband from the 
tavern and leads him away.' 

r A report was soon circulated in the neighbor- 
hood to the effect that Gerrninie frequented those 
balls — that she did not miss one; the green-grocer 
sent her son “to see.” He returned, saying it was 
true, and in addition related all the indignities 
heaped upon Gerrninie, but which did not prevent 
her from returning again and again. There was, 
then, no longer any doubt as to the relations exist- 
ing between mademoiselle’s servant and Jupillon — 
relations which, however, several charitable souls 
disputed.-' 

The scandalous rumor spread, and in a week the 
poor girl, called by all the coarse names in the 
vocabulary of the streets, fell at one sweep from 
the highest esteem to the lowest scorn.^^-^ 

Up to that time her pride, which was great, had 
enjoyed that respect, that consideration, shown her 
as the servant who honorably served an honorable 
mistress. She was above her companions. Her 
irreproachable conduct, her position of trust at 
mademoiselle’s, caused the shopkeepers to treat her 
on a different footing from that of the other maids. 
They addressed her cap in hand; they called her 
“Mademoiselle Gerrninie;” they hastened to serve 
her; they gave her the only chair in the shop. 
Even when she bargained, they were polite. Coarse 


GERM INI E LACERTEUX 


71 


jests were not uttered in her presence. She was 
invited to family celebrations, consulted on various 
matters of importance. 

^^All was changed when her relations with Jupillon 
were discovered. The neighbors took their revenge 
for having respected her. ''Shameless women ap- 
proached her as they would an equal. The men 
accosted her with familiarity; thou’d and thee’d 
her with look, with tone, with gesture. Even the 
children on the sidewalk, formerly ready to greet 
her, escaped from her as from one whom they 
feared. She could not take a step without en- 
countering contempt, and having her shame cast 
into her teeth. This was to her a terrible fall. 
She suffered; but in proportion as she suffered she 
clung more closely to her loverrN/^ 

She bore him no ill-will; she did not reproach 
him; but she could be seen on the street, through 
which a short while since she had passed proudly, 
with head erect — hurrying furtively along, her head 
bent, her eyes cast down, fearing recognition, 
hastening past the shops, the owners of which had 
cast reproach upon her. 


72 


GERMINIE Ly^CER TEUX 


XVIII 

^ Jupillon complained continually of the tedious- 
ness of working for others; of not being “his own 
master;” of not being able to obtain from his 
mother fifteen or eighteen hundred francs. It 
required no larger sum with which to rent two 
rooms on the ground floor, obtain a small stock 
and the necessary implements. Then he pro- 
ceeded to build castles in the air. He would estab- 
lish himself in the quarter most favorable to the 
trade; to gloves he would soon add perfumeries, 
ties; then, with the profits, he would rent a shop 
on Rue de Richelieu. 

Every time he spoke of it, Germinie asked him 
a thousand questions. She wished to know all 
that it required to set up a business of that kind; 
she had him tell her the names of the tools, the 
accessories, their cost, their dealers. She ques- 
tioned him at such length, so curiously about his 
trade, his work, that at last Jupillon said to her 
impatiently: 

“What does all that concern you.^ The work wor- 
ries me enough — do not mention it to me,” 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


73 


One Sunday, as they strolled toward Montmartre, 
instead of going by way of Rue Frochot, Germinie 
chose Rue Pigalle. 

“But this is not the way,” objected Jupillon. 

“I know it,” she replied; “come along.” 

She took his arm, but turned away her head, 
that he might not see her face. In Rue Fontaine 
Saint Georges, she stopped abruptly before two 
windows on the ground floor, and said: 

“See there!” She was trembling with delight. 

Jupillon looked. He saw, between the two win- 
^ dows, on a copper plate: 

“jupillon, glover.” 

He saw the white curtains at the first window; 
through the panes of the second, the sets of 
pigeon-holes and paste-board boxes, and in front 
of these, the bench of his calling, with the large 
shears, and the knife for the skins. 

“Your key is at the porter’s,” said she to him. 

They entered the first room — the shop. She 
began to show him everything; she opened the 
boxes, and laughed. Then, pushing open the other 
door, she said: 

^‘See! you will not suffocate here, as you do in 
^ your mother’s attic. Do you like it? Oh, it is 
not elegant, but it is neat. I wanted mahogany. 
Ah, the paper! I had almost forgotten it.” She 
slipped into his hand a receipt for the rent. “That 


74 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


is for six months. You must begin at once to 
make money. Let me sit down. You look so 
happy — I am overcome.’’ 

And she dropped into a chair. Jupillon bent 
over her to kiss her. 

“Ah, I have none,” she said. Seeing his eyes 
searching for her ear-rings. “I have no rings, 
either — do you see, I have none.^” She held up 
her hands, despoiled of the paltry jewels she had 
worked so long to obtain. 

As Jupillon stood before her, with an embar- 
rassed air, vainly striving to find words of thanks, 
Germinie said simply: 

“How comical you are! What ails you.^ You 
are silly! I love you, do I not.? Well.?”^.^ 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


75 


XIX 

Germinie at length made a discovery which at 
first she doubted, dared not believe. Then, when 
she was certain, a great joy possessed her. The 
thought of the scandal of her discovered connec- 
tion with Jupillon, of the exposure, of her disgrace 
in the neighborhood, of the dishonor should 
mademoiselle find it out — nothing could mar her 
felicity, and she bore her trouble haughtily as she 
felt the instincts of a mother^ She only grieved at 
having spent all her savings, and having drawn her 
wages several months in advance. She regretted 
her poverty bitterly, under the circumstances. 

^ Often, when passing through Rue Saint Lazare, 
where there was a shop in the windows of which 
was displayed children’s finery, she was seized 
with a desire to break the windows and steal some 
of it; - behind the goods exposed stood the clerks, 
accustomed to seeing her stop, who looked at her 
and laughed. — 

^^^ Then again, at times, with the rapture that per- 
vaded her whole being, would be mingled a feeling 
of uneasiness. She asked herself how the father 


76 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


would receive his child^^ Two or three times she 
had decided to confide in him, but she had not 
dared. Finally, one day, seeing in his face a sign 
of tenderness for which she had waited so long in 
order to tell him all, she confessed to him with 
many blushes, as if asking his pardon, that which 
rendered her so happy 

“It is only a fancy!” replied Jupillon. 

When she assured him that it was no fancy, the 
young man said with an oath: 

“What luck! Will you tell me who will feed the 
sparrow?” 

“Make yourself easy on that score. It shall not 
suffer; that is my concern. Have no fear! I will 
manage — no one will know of it. See! of late I 
have walked with head erect. No one will find it 
out, I tell you. Just think! a sacred bond be- 
tween you and me!’^ 

“Well, what is, can’t be helped, eh?” said the 
young man. 

“Tell me,” ventured Germinie timidly, “shall 
you tell your mother?” 

“My mother? No, indeed. Afterward — that will 
be more impressive, and perhaps then she will for- 
give us.” 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


11 


XX 

/The day arrived on which Mile, de Varandeuil 
annually gave a large dinner, to which she invited 
all the children in her family, as well as those of 
her friends, both large and small. Scarcely would 
the tiny rooms hold all the guests. Part of the 
furniture had to be put on the landing, and a table 
was set in each of the rooms. 

(por the children this was a treat which they an- 
ticipated a week beforehand.^ They ran up the 
stairs behind the pastry-cook. At the table they 
ate without being scolded. In the evening they 
climbed upon the chairs, and made so much noise 
that mademoiselle always had a headache the next 
day.^ But she did not grudge them their pleasure; 
she had hers in seeing and hearing them. For 
nothing in the world would she have missed giving 
that dinner, which filled the “old maid’s” rooms 
with those little blonde heads, as well as with 
laughter, mirth, and sunshine, for one day in the 
year, at least.^ 

Germinie was preparing the dinner. She was 
whipping cream when she was taken suddenly ill. 


78 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


She glanced at herself in the broken mirror which 
hung over her kitchen cupboard; she was pale. 
She went down-stairs to Adele. 

“Give me your mistress’ rouge,” she said to her, 
and she put some on her cheeks. Then, reascend- 
ing, she finished preparing the meal. She also 
served it. 

y^At dessert she supported herself on the backs 
of the chairs, hiding her torture under a smile. 

“Are you ill.?” asked her mistress,, looking at 
her. 

“Yes, mademoiselle, somewhat; it is probably 
the charcoal.” 

“Come, go to bed; we no longer need you — you 
can remove the cloth to-morrow.” 

On being dismissed, Germinie returned to Adele. 

“Quick, a cab! Rue de la Huchette, did you 
not say.? Have you a pen and paper.?” 

- She wrote a line to her mistress. She told her 
that she was very ill; that she was at the hospital; 
that she would not tell her where, for fear she 
might exert herself to come to see her; that in a 
week she would return. 

Adele gave her the number of the house. 

“Now,” said Germinie to her, “not a word to 
mademoiselle; swear to me, not a word.” 

She descended the stairs, and met Jupillon on the 
way. 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


79 


“Ah, said he, “where are you going?” 

She explained to him what had occurred during 
the dinner, adding: “Why have you come here? I 
told you never to come; I did not want you to.” 

“I came to tell you that I must have forty francs. 

I am in absolute need of the money.” 

Forty francs! Why, I have only enough to pay 
my expenses.” 

“That is annoying,” said he, giving her his arm. 
He opened the door of the carriage. “Where shall 
he take you?” 

Germinie gave him the address, and slipped the 
forty francs into his hand, saying: 

“I have still seven francs.” 

The cab rolled away. For a moment Jupillon 
stood there, motionless; then he ran after the cab, 
and stopping it, said to Germinie: 

“At least let me go with you?” 

“No; I would rather be alone,” replied Ger- 
minie, leaning back on the cushions. 

At the end of what seemed a long half-hour, the 
cab drew up at a house in Rue Porte Royale. The 
cabman got down from the box, and rang. The 
portress, assisted by a maid from one of the wards, 
carried Germinie upstairs, and placed her on a bed. 
She looked about her; saw rnany beds side by side, 
and at the end of the immense room a large fire- 
place, in which burned a bright fire. 


80 


GBRMINIE L/tCERTEUX 


f ^ Half an hour later Germinie held in her arms a 
little daughter. ^ She closed her eyes and ears to 
what was going on around her, for a terrible epi- 
demic had broken out, carrying off the youngest and 
strongest in a few hours. Germinie wished to live, 
and she was strengthened in that desire by the 
thought of her child, by the remembrance of her 
mistress. 

(^ut the sixth day her courage failed her. She 
thought she should die; she felt the first symptoms 
of the epidemic. She had abandoned herself to 
them when a face bent over her — it was that of 
the youngest nurse: a fair face it was, with golden 
hair falling around it, and soft blue eyes looking 
out from it. On seeing those eyes, women in their 
delirium had cried: “Behold! the Holy Virgin 

child,” said the nurse to Germinie, “you 
must demand your permit at once; you must 
leave here. You must dress yourself warmly; you 
must protect yourself. As soon as you reach home, 
you must take some tea; you must perspire — then 
you will be all right. But go! Here, to-night,” 
said she, her eyes wandering toward the other 
beds, “it will not be good for you. Do not say that 
it was I who advised you to go, or I shall lose my 
place. 








jp 










CEkMimE LACEkTEUX 


81 


XXI 

^^Germinie recovered in several days. She re- 
gained her strength, and she took more pleasure in 
life than her mistress had ever noticed before. 

Every Sunday, no matter what the weather, she 
went out at eleven o’clock. Mademoiselle thought 
she visited a friend in the country, and she was de- 
lighted to find that those hours spent in the fresh 
air benefited her maid so much. 

Jupillon allowed Germinie to take him without 
offering much resistance, and they set out for 
Pommeuse, where their child was, and where a 
hearty breakfast awaited them.^ Once in the rail- 
way carriage, Germinie talked no longer. Scarcely 
had the train stopped when she rushed out, threw 
her ticket to the collector, and ran along the high 
road to Pommeuse, leaving Jupillon behind her. 
-^Arrived there, she took her infant from the 
nurse’s arms with jealous hands — the hands of a 
mother — fondled it, covered it with kisses. They 
breakfasted. She sat at the table, the little one 
on her knee, and ate nothing; she tried to discover 

Germinie Lacerteux 6 


82 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


some resemblance to both Jupillon and herself in 
the child. (|pne feature was his, another hers?| 

^t is your nose; those are my eyes. She will 
have hair like yours in time; it will curl. Do you 
see, she has your hands. She is like you.^ 
,/^Jupillon bore all this without showing much im- 
patience, thanks to the cigars which Germinie drew 
from her pocket, and which she doled out to him 
one by one. 

^^.^Then, too, he had found diversion. At the end of 
the garden ran a stream. Jupillon was a Parisian; 
he liked to fish; and when spring came they 
spent the entire day in the garden on the edge of 
the water, Jupillon on a plank, his line in his 
hand — Germinie, her child on her lap, seated on 
the grass under a medlar tree by the river-side. 

/^She felt supremely happy when the little one, who 
could not yet speak, touched her mouth, her chin, 
her cheeks, with her tiny hands, and persisted in 
putting her fingers in her mother’s eyes. From 
time to time she called Jupillon’s attention to their 
child. When she fell asleep at length, Germinie, 
having her future on her knees, looked about her 
and recalled her past life^^ The grass, the trees, 
the river running through the garden in which she 
was seated, reminded her of the rustic garden of 
her childhood, -s. 


GBRMINIE L^CERTEUX 


83 


XXII 

-The following Wednesday, on coming down- 
stairs, Germinie found a letter awaiting her. In 
that letter, written on the back of a laundress’ 
receipt, Mme. Remalard informed her that her 
child had been taken ill almost as soon as she had 
left.^ As she had grown worse, she called in a 
doctor, who said a poisonous insect had stung the 
baby; he had been again, and she did not know 
what to d^ 

That letter was a great shock to Germinie. She 
mechanically rushed to the station; she must see 
her child — she must see her at once. Her hair 
was uncombed, she had on slippers; but she did 
not think of that. She remembered that she had 
not prepared mademoiselle’s breakfast. Half-way 
down the street, she saw a clock. It occurred to 
her that there was no train at that hour. She re- 
traced her steps, saying that she would hurry 
through the meal, and then find some pretext for 
getting off for the rest of the day.''^' 

But, breakfast having been served, she found 


84 CERMINIE UCERTEU)t 


none; her head was so filled with thoughts of her 
child that she could not invent a lie — she was 
dazed; and then, if she had spoken, she would 
have cried, for she felt it on her lips, “I must go to 
my child!” 

At night she dared not go. Mademoiselle had 
been somewhat ill the preceding night-^she feared 
she might need her. The next day, when she en- 
tered mademoiselle’s room with a story invented 
during the night, ready to ask permission to go 
away, mademoiselle said to her, as she read the 
letter the porter had brought her: 

“Ah, my old friend, Mme. de Belleuse needs 
you all day to help her with her preserves. Quick! 
my eggs, then to the station! Ah, are you vexed.!* 
What is it.!*” 

“I vexed.!* Not at all,” Germinie had the strength 
to reply. 

All that day, as she bent over the fire, she was 
almost distracted at the thought of not being able 
to go to her loved one who was suffering, and un- 
easily she pictured to herself that the child was 
dying without her by her side.^ Finding no letter 
awaiting her on her return, and receiving none 
Friday morning, she felt reassured. Were the 
child worse, the nurse would have written to her. 
She must be better; she fancied her saved — 
cured. Children, she told herself, so often lay at 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


85 


death’s door, and then rapidly recovered — hers, 
too, was so strong. She resolved to wait — to be 
patient — until Sunday; for the next forty-eight 
hours allaying her fears by superstition, persuad- 
ing herself that her little daughter had recovered, 
because the first person whom she had met that 
morning was a man; because she had seen a 
chestnut horse; because she had guessed that a 
passer-by would turn down a certain street. — 
Saturday morning, on entering Mme. Jupil- 
lon’s, she found her on the point of weeping into a 
jar of butter which she was covering with a cloth. 

fAh, it is you, is it.?” said madame. “That 
poor coal woman! — I am weeping for her; she is 
going away, and her child is dying — the little angel, 
she was just like one of us. My God! yes,” and 
Mme. Jupillon began to sob. 

Germinie fled. She was restless all day. Every 
few moments she ascended the stairs to her room 
to put in order the things she was going to take 
with her the following day. That evening, as she 
was on her way to assist mademoiselle to retire, 
Adele handed her a letter which she had found 
below, 7 


86 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


XXIII 

[ Mademoiselle had commenced to disrobe when 
Germinie entered her room, took several steps for- 
ward, sank into a chair, and after heaving two or 
three deep, sorrowful sighs, fell from the chair to 
the floor in convulsions.^ Her mistress tried to 
raise her, but she was in such a condition that the 
old lady could do nothing for her. . In answer to 
mademoiselle’s cries, a maid from another floor 
ran for a doctor near by, whom, however, she 
could not find. In the meantime, four women 
assisted mademoiselle in lifting Germinie and laying 
her on the bed. The terrible convulsions had 
ceased, but her bosom still heaved; with averted 
head, eyes full of pitiful tenderness and anguish, 
panting, and replying to no questions, Germinie 
clutched with both hands at her throat, she seemed 
to wish to tear out the sensation which oppressed 
her. j 

<^In vain did they offer her ether to inhale, orange- 
flower water to drink. Her frame was repeatedly 
shaken by waves of grief, and her face wore the 
same melancholy expression. At the end of an 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


87 


hour, tears came to her relief; then only occasion- 
ally did her form tremble; she succumbed to a feel- 
ing of lassitude. ' They carried her to her room. 

The letter which Adele had brought her contained 
the intelligence of her child’s death. 


88 


GERM W IE LACERTEUX 


XXIV 

As a result of that shock, Germinie for a time 
became melancholy: she was insensible to every- 
thing except to the thought of the little being who 
was no more. Every evening, when she reached 
the solitude of her chamber, she would take from 
a trunk, place dat the foot of her bed, her lost dar- 
ling’s cap and braces; she looked at them, stroked 
them, laid them on her bedT^ For hours she re- 
mained there, weeping over them, kissing them, 
talking to themT) In mourning her daughter, the 
unhappy woman mourned for herself. A voice 
within her whispered to her that the child being 
alive, she was saved. Her love for her was her sal- 
vation; her maternal affection had purified her 
heart of flesh. In her daughter was something 
which kept her from the evil influences that pur- 
sued her. But the child being dead, she dreaded 
their power. 

When she began to recover somewhat from her 
first abandonment to grief — when she began to 
take more interest in the world and people about 
her — another bitter trial awaited her. 


GERM IS IE LACERTEUX 


/^“Having grown too stout, too clumsy to attend 
to the duties of her shop, and finding that she had 
too much to do, notwithstanding all the responsi- 
bilities assumed by Germinie, Mme. Jupillon sent 
for a niece from the country to help her. The 
girl, though a woman in years, yet a child in 
experience, was a typical rustic lass. She was-^ 
vivacious, with bright black eyes, lips like cherries, 
full and rosy — the spring-time of life — the glow of 
health in her veins. ^ Spirited and artless, the girl 
had met her cousin simply, naturally, as youth 
meets youth, with frank innocence, and that rustic 
coquetry, which her cousin’s vanity could not 
resist. The girl’s very presence wounded Ger- 
minie. The half-confidences with which she in- 
trusted Jupillon, the attention he paid her, his 
gayety, his jests, his good-temper, all exasperated 
Ge’rminie.''-^^ 

^She dared not speak of this to Mother Jupillon, 
nor denounce the girl to her, for fear of betraying 
herself; but whenever she was left alone with 
Jupillon, she overwhelmed him with accusations 
and complaints^) She would recall a circumstance, 
a word, something that he had said or done, a 
trifling remark, forgotten by him, but treasured up 
by her.,^. 

“Are you mad.^” Jupillon would ask. “Why, all 
the men look at her on the street! >^The other day 


90 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


I went out with her. I was ashamed. I do not 
know how she managed, but we were followed the 
whole time by a gentleman. Well, she is pretty, I 
suppose, and — ” 

At the word “pretty” Germinie forthwith attacked 
the young girl, and ended by saying: ^ou love 
her!” , 

“Well — what then.!^” replied Jupillon, to whom 
those quarrels were not displeasing, for he delighted 
in the sight of the woman’s fury.^^ 

In consequence of those scenes, which were re- 
peated almost daily, that nature, so extreme, with- 
out a medium, changed, love turned to hatred^ 

Germinie began to detest her lover, and to seek 
more cause for hating him in a greater measure. 
Her thoughts reverting to her child — to its death — 
she persuaded herself that it was he who had killed 
it. She saw in him the assassin, (she avoided 
him as the curse of her life, her evil genius.^ 


GERMINIE LACERJEUX 


91 


XXV 

One morning, after having revolved in her mind 
her trials and her hatred, on entering the shop to 
obtain her milk, Germinie found several maids in 
the back room taking a “dram.” Seated at a table, 
they gossiped as they drank. 

“Here!” cried Adele, rapping on the table; “is 
that you already. Mile, de Varandeuil.?” 

“What is that.?” asked Germinie, taking up Adele’s 
glass. “I would like some too.” 

“Are you so thirsty this morning.? It is brandy 
and bitters — nothing else; soldiers drink it. It 
is strong, isn’t it, eh.?” 

“Yes,” said Germinie; “but it tastes good. Mme. 
Jupillon, a bottle here! I will pay for it.” She 
threw the money on the table. 

--After drinking three glasses, she cried, “I have 
had enough,” and burst out laughing. 

Mile, de Varandeuil had been out that morning. 
When she returned, at eleven o’clock, she rang once, 
twice; no one answered her summons. 

“Ah,” said she, “she must have gone out.” The 
old lady entered her room. The mattress and 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


d2 


bedclothes were on two chairs, and Germinie was 
stretched across the straw mattress, sleeping heavily. 
On mademoiselle’s entrance, Germinie rose at one 
bound, rubbing her eyes with her hand. 

“Eh.?” said she, as if some one had called her. 

“What is the matter.?” asked Mile, de Varandeuil 
in affright. “Did you fall.? Are you ill.?” 

^“L? No!” replied Germinie. “I fell asleep. What 
time is it.? It is nothing.” And she began to 
make the bed, turning her back to her mistress, in 
order to conceal the traces of intoxication visible 
on her features. 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX W 


XXVI 


^^Jupillon was making his toilet in the room Ger- 
minie had furnished for him. His mother sat by, 
watching him with pride, with the eyes of a mother 
of her class, who gazes admiringly upon the son 
who is to her a “gentleman.*-* — 

^^You are a fine fellow; you will break hearts,’* 
said she to him. 

Jupillon, who was tying his cravat, did not reply. 

His mother continued in a tone of affectionate 
insinuation: 

say, Bibi, listen to me. Young women make 
mistakes; it is unfortunate for them, but it is their 
concern.-v^You are a man in age, appearance, and 
all. I cannot always keep you at my apron- 
strings. At one time I thought ^one just as lief as 
another. ’ And Germinie kept you from squander- 
ing your money on worthless women. But now 
stories are being circulated about her in the neigh- 
borhood; the vipers connect our name with them. 
But, notwithstanding that, we are beyond such tales, 
I know. We have been respectable all our lives. 


94 


GERMINIE Lj4CERTEUX 


thank the Lord; and I want justice. What do you 
say to that, Bibi.?” 

“Anything you like, mother.” 

“Ah, I knew you loved your poor mother,” ex- 
claimed the stout woman, embracing him. “Very 
well; invite her to dinner this evening. You may 
bring up two bottles of Lunel; and to be sure that 
she will come, you must make eyes at her, that she 
may think to-day is the day.” 

Germinie came that evening at seven o’clock, 
very happy, very joyous, very hopeful, her head 
filled with fancies by the air of mystery with which 
Jupillon delivered his mother’s invitation. They 
dined, they drank, they laughed. Mme. Jupillon 
gazed with tearful eyes at the couple before her. 
When they were sipping their cohee she said, in 
order to be left alone with Germinie: 

“Bibi, you know that you have something to 
attend to this evening.” 

Jupillon left the room. For a moment the two 
women maintained silence, one waiting for the 
other to speak, Germinie having the cry of her 
heart on her lips. Suddenly she arose from her 
chair, and cast herself into the large woman’s arms. 
/'~^Ah! if you knew all, Mme. Jupillon!” she cried, 
weeping and kissing her. “You will surely not be 
angry with me. I love him. I have had a child. 

I have loved him three years. 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


95 


At each word Mme. Jupillon’s face grew more 
rigid. She pushed Germinie roughly from her, and 
in a doleful voice, with an accent of despair, she 
gasped, as if suffocating: 

my God! You — to tell me things like that — 
me — his mother — to my face! Oh! my son, my 
child— my innocent child! You had the assurance 
to lead him astray — and to tell me of it, too! No, 
it is impossible! I had so much confidence in you. 
Ah, mademoiselle; I should never have believed 

that of you!”^'^v_^ 

^--i<Mme. Jupillon! Mme. Jupillon!” implored Ger- 
minie, overcome with shame and grief, “I ask your 
pardon. I could not help myself; and then, I 
thought — I thought — 

“You thought! — oh, my God! you thought! 
What did you think.? — you were my son’s wife, eh.? 
Oh! is it possible! my poor child.?” Then she 
changed to a tone of plaintiveness: “But, my girl, 
come, be reasonable. What have I always told 
you.? — that that might be, were you ten years 
younger. You see, you are now in your thirtieth 
year, my good child. I am sorry to have to speak 
thus to you. I do not wish to give you pain; but, 
my dear woman, one needs only to look at you; 
your hair is getting thin.”-^^ 
r“But,” said Germinie, her anger aroused, “what 


f 


98 GERMINIE LACERTEUX 

your son owes me — my money — the money retook 
from my savings — the money I — ” ^ 

Money — he owes you money? Ah, yes, the 
money you loaned him with which to start in busi- 
ness. Do you think you have to deal with thieves? 
Do you think we want to cheat you out of your 
money? Why, it was only the other day that the 
honest boy wanted all arranged in case he should 
die — and you think we are cheats? Oh, I am 
punished for having trusted you! Look you, this is 
what I see clearly: you were politic; you wished 
to have my son pay you with his life Excuse me 
— many thanks; we would rather pay you your 
money — you, the leavings of a cafe-waiter! My 
poor, dear child! Heaven preserve him!” 

Germinie snatched her hat and shawl from the 
peg, and rushed out of the house. 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


97 


XXVII 


^ Mademoiselle was seated in her large arm-chair 
by the side of the fire-place. Her black dress, ac- 
centuating her angles, was scantily plaited, and fell 
in straight lines from her knees. A small black 
shawl was crossed over her chest and knotted be- 
hind. Her thin hands lay in her lap. From the 
depths of that funereal garb peered her face, yellow 
with age, lighted by the fire of her still bright 
brown eyes, 

Germinie was beside her. 

The old lady asked, “Are the pads at the door, 
Germinie.?” 


“Yes, mademoiselle.” 

^'^‘Do you know, my girl,” resumed Mile, de Var- 
andeuil after a pause — “do you know that when one 
has been born in the finest mansion on Rue Royale; 
when one has owned Grand and Petit Charolois; 
when one has had the castle of Clichy la Garenne 
for one’s country home; when it took two servants 
to carry the silver platter on which the roast beef was 
served — do you know that it then requires a great 
deal of philosophy to end in a place like this— in 

Germinie Lacerteux 7 


98 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


a rheumatic den, where, in spite of all the pads in 
the world, these currents of air blow upon you? 
Mend the fire a little.” 

Then, stretching her feet toward Germinie kneel- 
ing before the grate, and putting them under her 
nose with a laugh, she continued: 

“Do you know that it then requires a great deal 
of philosophy to wear torn stockings? Silly girl, I 
am not scolding you — I know very well you can’t 
do everything; but you might get a woman to do 
the mending — that would not be a difficult matter. 
Why not ask that little girl who came here last 
year? She had a face that I liked.” 

“She is as black as a mole, mademoiselle.” 

“You never think any one pretty. Was she not 
Mme. Jupillon’s niece? We might engage her for 
one or two days a week.” 

“She shall never set foot here!” 

“What! more quarrels? It is surprising how you 
can adore people, and then cannot bear to see 
them. What has she done to you?” 

“She is a wretched creature, I tell you!” 

“What has that to do with my mending?” 

“But, mademoiselle — ” 

“Well, then, find somebody else. I do not insist 
on having that particular girl.” 

“I will attend to your mending myself; we do 
not need any one.” 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


99 


“If we depend on your needle — ah!” gayly said 
mademoiselle, “can Mme. Jupillon spare you?” 

“ Mme. J upillon ! I shall never cross her threshold 
again!” 

“What! angry with her too? Well, well! Hurry 
and form another friendship, or we shall have sorry 
times. 


100 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


XXVIII 

The winter of that year should have insured 
Mile, de Varandeuil a place in Paradise. She 
had to endure all the consequences of her maid’s 
troubles — the disarrangement of her nerves, and 
her contrary moods. 

Germinie no longer wept, but her eyes showed 
that she had shed many tears. To all questions she 
invariably replied, “It is nothing, mademoiselle,” 
in that tone suggestive of a secret suppressed. She 
assumed a dejected manner, filer face, her eyes, 
her mouth, the folds of her dress, her appearance, 
the noise she made at her work — even her silence — 
involved mademoiselle in despair.^ At the slightest 
word she was up in arms. ' 

■Her mistress could no longer address a remark 
to her, ask of her the least thing, express a wish, 
a desire — she looked upon everything in the light 
of a reproach. She complained tearfully: “Ah, I 
am very unhappy; I see that mademoiselle no 
longer loves me.” She grumbled at everybody. 
“She always comes when it rains,” she said of 


GERM W IE LACERTEUX 


101 


Mme. de Belleuse, when she found some mud on 
the carpet. 

The week before the fete day, when all who were 
left of mademoiselle’s friends and relatives, from 
the wealthiest to the poorest, came, without excep- 
tion, Germinie’s ill-humor and impertinent remarks 
were redoubled. CHabit, the dread of changing, the 
dislike to new faces, render aged people patient 
and forbearing with old servants!^ To all Ger- 
minie’s remarks, her mistress made no reply. She 
pretended to be reading when her maid entered the 
room. She bore Germinie no malice, and waited 
patiently until her mood had changed. Germinie 
was not a servant to Mile, de Varandeuil: she was 
the loved one, who should remain beside her to 
close her eyes in her last long sleep. She had 
taken the girl to her heart as an adopted daughter, 
and she was rendered miserable by the thought of 
not being permitted to comfort her. 

At times, however, Germinie would cast herself 
at the old lady’s feet and weep bitterly. Then 
mademoiselle would say to her: “Come, my girl, 
something ails you; tell me,” and Germinie would 
reply: “No, mademoiselle; it is the weather!” 

“The weather!” repeated the old lady doubtfully; 
“the weather!” 


102 


GERMINIH LAC ERIE UX 


XXIX 


n a March evening, the Jupillons, mother and 



son, sat chatting by the stove in the rear of the 
shop. 

Jupillon was in trouble. The money his mother 
had laid aside had been consumed by six months of 
dull trade. He had applied for a loan to a former 
employer; but the perfumer had not forgiven him 
for leaving him and starting a business for himself, 
and he refused his request. Mme. Jupillon, discon- 
solate, was in tears. 

“I will sell the shop, Bibi. I will go into service. 
I will be a cook — a housekeeper — I will do any- 
thing! I will get money for you in some way.” 

Jupillon smiled, and allowed his mother to finish; 
then he said; 

“That will do, mother; all that is only talk. 
You disturb your digestion — it is not necessary. 
You need sell nothing; you need not worry. I will 
keep myself, and it shall not cost you a sou. What 
will you bet.?” 

“Lord!” gasped Mme. Jupillon. 

“I have an idea!” Then, after a pause, Jupillon 


GERM IE LACERTEUX 


103 


resumed: “I did not wish to cross you with regard 
to Germinie. You heard those stories; you thought 
it was time for us to break with her, and you cast 
her off. That was not my plan; but you thought 
you were doing right — and perhaps, indeed, you 
were right. She is pining. I have met her once 
or twice, and — ” 

“You know very well she has not a sou!” 

“I know she has not, and she will not steal, 
unless it be from her mistress. Do you think 
mademoiselle would have her arrested for that.? 
Not she; she would send her off, and that would 
end it. We would advise her to take the air in 
another quarter, and we would not be troubled with 
her any more.” 

“What are you talking about.? After the scene I 
made, she will never come here.” 

^_iWou shall see — I will bring her,” said Jupillon 
confidently, rising and rolling a cigarette between 
his fingers; “and no later than this evening.” 


104 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


XXX 

Jupillon was walking to and fro upon the side- 
walk in front of the house in which Germinie lived, 
when she came out. 

“Good evening, Germinie,” he said to her. 

She turned, and instinctively took several steps 
forward, without replying. 

“Germinie!” said Jupillon, without stirring, with- 
out following her. She turned toward him like an 
animal that is pulled by a leading-string. 

“What!” she asked; “do you want money again, 
or have ydii some abuses to heap upon me.^” 

“No; I am going away,” said Jupillon with a 
serious air; “I am going away.” 

“Going away.?” she asked wonderingly. 

“See here, Germinie,” said Jupillon. “I have 
caused you pain — I have been unkind to you; I 
know that well. It was my cousin’s fault.” 

“You are going away.?” interrupted Germinie, 
seizing his arm. “Do not lie to me! are you going 
away.?” 

“I tell you I am; it is true. I only need my 
ticket — if I don’t get the two thousand francs. 



•L 




» 




I 










GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


105 


They say there is going to be war, and I shall be a 
soldier.” 

As he talked, he led Germinie down the street. 

“Whither are you taking me.^” she asked. 

“To my mother, that you may become recon- 
ciled!” 

“After what she said to me.^ never!” And Ger- 
minie withdrew her arm from Jupillon’s. 

“Well, then, adieu;” and Jupillon raised his cap. 
“Shall I write to you.?” 

Germinie did not reply. For a moment she hesi- 
tated; then saying shortly, “Let us go,” and mak- 
ing a sign to Jupillon to walk beside her, they 
passed up the street. 

They walked side by side without speaking until 
Jupillon asked, “Well, are you reflecting.?” 

“Let us go on,” abruptly replied Germinie; and 
silently she continued on her way, violently agi- 
tated by the tumult in her soul. Suddenly she 
stopped, and with a gesture of despair she said: 

“My God! the last straw. Come!” and she took 
Jupillon’s arm. 

^■Oh, I know,” said Jupillon to her, when they 
neared the shop, “my mother was unjust to you. 
You see, she has been respectable all her life; she 
does not know — she does not understand; Then, 
too, I was at the bottom of it all; she is so fond 


106 


GERM W IE LACERTEUX 


of me that she is jealous of women who love me. 
Now enter!” 

/-"With those words, he pushed her into the arms 
of Mme. Jupillon, who embraced her, who mur- 
mured words of apology, and who forthwith shed 
tears in order to cover her embarrassment and to 
render the scene more affecting. ^ 

The entire evening Germinie kept her eyes fixed • 
on Jupillon, almost terrifying him by her glance. 

“Come,” said he, on seeing her home, “do not 
be downcast. Some philosophy is required in this 
world. I am going to be. a soldier — that is all. It 
is true, they do not . always return ; but I wish we 
could enjoy the fifteen days left me, and if I do 
not return, I have at least left you a pleasant re- 
membrance of me.” 

Germinie made no reply. 


GERMINIE LylCERTEUX 


107 



XXXI 

-^For a week Germinie did not set foot within the 
shop. The Jupillons began to despair. At last, 
one evening, about half-past ten, she opened the 
door, entered, without saying “Good day” or “Good 
evening,” and advanced to the small table at which 
mother and son were seated, half asleep, holding 
in her hand an old canvas bag. 

^“Here!” said she, emptying it of its contents, 
consisting of bank bills glued together, fastened 
with pins — old louis green with age — a hundred sous, 
forty sous, and ten sous — the money of toil, money 
soiled by dirty hands. For one moment she glanced 
at the pile, as if to convince herself; then, in a sad, 
gentle tone, she said to Mme. Jupillon: “There it 
is — two thousand three hundred francs!” 

“Ah, my kind Germinie,” said the woman, over- 
come by emotion, throwing herself upon Germinie ’s 
neck. “Now you must take something — a cup of 
coffee.” 

“No, thank you,” said Germinie; “I am tired; I 
have had to walk to collect the money. I am going 
to bed. Another time;” and she left the room. 


108 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


^ She had had “to walk,” as she had said, to 
gather together, to realize that sum — to find two 
thousand three hundred francs, of which she had 
not the first five sous. She had collected, begged, 
extorted them, piece by piece, almost sou by sou. 
She had scraped them here and there — from one, 
from another — by loans of two louis, one hundred 
francs, fifty francs, twenty francs. She had bor- 
rowed of her porter, her grocer, her green-grocer, her 
laundress. She had obtained it by inventing stories, 
begging, praying, lying; she had humbled herself and 
her pride, as she would not have done to obtain 
bread. She had the money, but she knew that 
she was in debt, would always be in debt; that she 
would have to deprive herself in every way to pay 
the interest on her debts. She put no faith in the 
Jupillons; she had a presentiment that the money 
would be lost with them; she did not even calculate 
that her sacrifice would touch the young man. 

She had acted on impulse. Had she been ordered 
to die that he might not go, she would have died 
willingly. The thought of seeing him a soldier — 
the thought of the battle-field, of the cannon, of the 
wounded — had determined her to do more — to sell 
her life for that man, to sign her eternal misery for 
his sake! 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


109 


“S-- 

XXXII 


/ The moment arrived when the terrible truth, no 
longer veiled by lingering illusions, was revealed to 
Germinie. She saw that she could not win Jupil- 
lon by devotion, by self-deprivation, by sacrifices, 
which involved her in a debt impossible for her to 
repay. She felt that he reluctantly gave her his 
love — a love bestowed from a sense of obligation!^ 
When she blushingly for the second time confided 
to him her secret, he unsympathetically replied: 

“Ah, it is indeed amusing!” 

(^he made no complaints; she did not weep, nor 
reproach him. She struggled to renounce the un- 
feeling man who abused her love, her devoted 
passion, with the calm irony of a blackguard. And 
she prepared with anguish for what.? she knew 
not; perhaps to be cast off! ^ 

Broken-hearted and silently she watched Jupillon, 
persuaded that something was wrong — that what 
she feared was true — that she had a rival. 

^One morning, when she came down-stairs some- 
what earlier than was her custom, she saw Jupillon 
several paces in front of her. He was dressed in 


110 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


his finest clothes. As he walked he admired him- 
self; from time to time, in order to look at the gloss 
on his boots, he raised the edge of his trousers. 

She followed him. He went along, without turn- 
ing, to Place Breda. In that square, near a cab- 
stand, a woman was pacing to and fro. Germinie 
could only see her back. Jupillon went up to her; 
she turned — it was his cousin. They walked side 
by side in the direction of Rue de Navarin. There 
the young girl took Jupillon’s arm, at first not 
leaning upon it; then, by degrees, as they walked 
on, She bent over his arm, like a branch which had 
given way\ The couple sauntered along slowly, so 
slowly that at times Germinie was forced to halt so 
as not to be too close to them. They passed along 
Rue des Martyrs, crossed Rue de la Tour d’Au- 
vergne, and down Rue Montholon. 

Jupillon was talking earnestly; his cousin said 
nothing, ^he listened to him, casting around her 
from time to time timid glances.'^ Arrived at Rue 
Lamartine, at the Passage des Duex Soeurs, they 
turned. Germinie had barely time to rush into a 
doorway. They passed, however, without seeing 
her. The young girl was grave, and walked with 
faltering steps. Jupillon was whispering in her 
ear. They stopped. Jupillon gesticulated; the 
girl stared fixedly at the pavement. Germinie 
thought they were about to separate; but they 


GERMINIB LACERTEUX 


111 


finally resumed their walk side by side, passing the 
passage four or five times. At length they en- 
tered it. Germinie rushed from her hiding-place 
and followed in their footsteps. 

Through the grating she saw a dress disappear in 
a doorway; she approached that doorway, looked 
in, saw nothing more. 

/'I'hen the blood rushed to her brain, and one 
tWught was repeated by her lips: “Vitriol! vitriol!”.--^ 
In her frenzied fancy she ascended the stairs, the 
bottle concealed under her shawl. She knocked 
repeatedly at the door. Some one opened it. She 
gave no name — she paid no attention to any one. 
She was prepared for murder, ^he approached the 
bed — approached her. She seized her arm; she 
said to her: “Yes, it is I — here to take your life!’' 
And upon her face, her throat, her lovely skin — 
on all that beauty of which she was so proud — she 
poured the deadly fluid. The bottle was empty — 
she laughed. 

Dreaming thus madly, she walked on down the 
passage and the street to a grocer’s shop. For 
ten minutes she stood at the counter, with eyes that 
saw not — with the blinded eyes of one who is about 
to commit murder. 

“What do you want.?” asked the grocer’s wife 
impatiently, almost afraid of the woman standing 
there, motionless. 


112 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


“What do I want?” repeated Germinie. She 
was so strongly possessed with the one idea that 
she was on the point of asking for vitriol. “What 
do I want?” She put her hand to her head. 
“Ah, indeed, I do not remember,” and she left the 
shop with an unsteady step. 


CERMJNW L/tCERTEUX 


113 


XXXIII 

trials having caused her suffering equaled 
only by the agonies of death, Germinie sought 
oblivion in the glass which she had taken one morn- 
ing from Adele’s hand. From that day her in- 
temperate habits dated. She took her ‘^morning 
dram” with the other maids. (She drank with one, 
with another; she drank with the men who break- 
fasted at the shop; she drank with Adele, who took 
a fiendish delight in seeing her descend as low as 
herself.^ At first she drank for the sake of com- 
pany, for excitement; but soon she drank alone. 
Then she drank a half-filled glass, brought upstairs 
under her apron and hidden in some remote corner 
of the kitchen. Then she drank, in sheer despera- 
tion, those mixtures of white wine and brandy, 
which she swallowed one after another, until they 
produced that for which she thirsted — sleep. 

^,/^^^or what she sought was not a heated brain, 
the delirium of intoxication, but the oblivion of 
sleep — that dreamless, leaden sleep falling upon her 
like the stroke of a bludgeon upon the head of an 
ox — that sleep which was to her a truce and a de- 
liverance from an existence which she no longer 

Germinie Lacerteux 6 


114 CERMINIB LACERTEUX 

had the courage to continue or to put an end to. 
When she was herself — when she examined her 
conscience — her life seemed to her so abominable — 
she preferred drowning her cares. There was 
nothing in the world which would produce that 
state but sleep — the sleep of inebriation-r -which 
lulled like that of death. 

^In the liquor which she forced herself to drink, 
and which she madly swallowed, her trials, her suf- 
ferings, her miserable present, were blotted out. In 
half an hour she no longer thought. Her life — 
nothing — had any existence for her! “I drink to 
drown my troubles!” she said to a woman who 
hinted to her that she would injure her health. And 
when, in the reaction that followed her state of in- 
toxication, there possessed her a feeling of self-pity, 
of grief at and abhorrence of her faults and mis- 
fortunes, she tried stronger liquor. She even drank 
undiluted bitters, to produce a more inert lethargy. 

Finally, she spent the greater part of the day in 
that condition, from which she issued, dull of in- 
tellect and perception, with hands performing their 
duties from habit, with the appearance of a som- 
nambulist, with a body and mind in which thought, 
will, and memory seemed to retain the drowsiness 
and vagueness of the early morning hours. 


GERMiNIE UCERTEUX 115 


XXXIV 

v^Shortly after having fancied herself in the act of 
^ disfiguring her rival with vitriol, Germinie entered 
Rue de Laval, carrying a bottle of brandy. For two 
weeks she had been mistress of the apartments, free 
to indulge her intemperance. Mile, de Varandeuil, 
who as a rule seldom left home, had gone to spend 
a month with an old friend in the country. She 
did not take Germinie with her, for fear of exciting 
/he other servants’ jealousy at seeing a maid 
humored as to her duties, and treated on a different 
footing from them. 

Upon entering mademoiselle’s room, Germinie 
only took time to cast her hat and shawl upon the 
Xoor. Then she began to drink — the neck of the 
bottle between her teeth — until everything in the 
room became indistinct. She arose, and, stagger- 
ing, tried to reach her mistress’ bed, in order to lie 
down. In doing so she fell against a table, then 
rolled upon the floor, and lay there, motionless; 
she breathed heavily. /The fall against the table, 
however, had given her such a shock, that in the 
night the illness she had anticipated was prema- 
turely brought on. \ She tried to rise, to call for 


GERMim^ LACERTEUX 


il(} 

help on the landing; she made an effort to stand up; 
she found it impossible. She felt death slowly ap- 
proaching. At length, with another mighty effort, 
she dragged herself to the door; but, arrived there, 
she could not reach the lock — could not cry out. 
And she would without doubt have died there if 
Adele, on hearing a groan as she passed in the 
morning, had not brought a locksmith to open the 
door, and then obtained a nurse to care for the 
sick woman,^^-\/- 

When, in the course of a month, mademoiselle 
returned, she found Germinie up, but so weak that 
she was forced to sit down most of the time, and 
so pale that she looked as if she had no blood in 
her body. They told the old lady that she had 
been ill; but mademoiselle suspected nothing. ^ 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


117 


XXXV 

Germinie received mademoiselle with tender ca- 
resses, floods of tears. Her affection was like that 
of a sick child. With her hands, on which the 
blue veins were plainly visible, she tried to touch 
her mistress. She approached her with a sort of 
trembling and fervent humility. Seated before her 
on a tabouret, and looking up at her with the 
watchful eyes of a dog, she raised herself from time 
to time to kiss some portion of her dress, reseated 
herself, the next instant to recommence. There 
was anguish and supplication in those caresses, 
those kisses. 

^.^"^W^hen Death had come so near to her, in those 
hours of weakness, when on her bed alone, she had 
reviewed her life — the remembrance of her dis- 
grace — of all that she had concealed from Mile, de 
Varandeuil. The terror of God’s judgment — all the 
reproaches, all the fears, which All the ears of the 
(tying — had awakened in her conscience supreme 
fear and a remorseful feeling which she could not 
overcome. 

Germinie had not one pf those happy disposi- 


118 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


tioils which, after doing wrong, and leaving the 
memory behind, is never troubled by thoughts of 
the deed. She had not, like Adele, one of those 
coarse organizations which is only affected by ani- 
mal impressions. In her case a morbid sensitive- 
ness, a kind of cerebral erethism, a tendency of the 
brain to dwell upon her wrongs, her anxieties, her 
discontent — a moral sense, which was awakened 
within her after her errors — all her powers of deli- 
cacy combined in torturing her, and returned daily 
more cruelly. 

.Germinie had yielded to the impulse of passion, 

but no sooner had she done so than she scorned 
herself. Even under its influence she could not 
entirely forget. The image of mademoiselle, with 
her stern yet motherly face, rose before her. 
-Although Germinie abandoned herself to pas- 
sions, and fell, she still retained her feelings of 
modesty. Her degradation did not blind her to a 
sense of loathing and disgust of self. Her sullied 
conscience rejected impurity, struggled amidst her 
disgrace, and did not for a moment allow her the 
full enjoyment of vice, entire oblivion. When 
mademoiselle, too, ignoring the fact that she was 
a servant, addressed her with that brusque famil- 
iarity of voice and manner which touched her 
heart, Germinie, overcame, became mute under 
the horrible sense of her unworthiness. She fled; 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


she tore herself away from that affection so odi- 
ously deceived, and which, directed toward her, 
aroused her remorse. 


130 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


XXXVI 

^ -The wonder of that life of dissipation, of shame, 
Z' was that its secret was not betrayed. Germinie 
made no outward sign; not a word passed her lips; 
nothing could be divined from her face or man- 
ner, and the horrible depth of her existence was 
hidden from her mistress. Mile, de Varandeuil 
at times vaguely suspected that her maid had a 
secret — that she was concealing something from 
her. She had moments of doubt, of instinctive 
uneasiness — a confused perception of something 
enveloped in mystery. At times it had seemed to 
her that her maid’s eyes did not express what her 
lips uttered. Involuntarily, a phrase which Ger- 
minie often repeated occurred to her: “A hidden 
sin, a sin half pardoned.” But what surprised her 
most was to see that, notwithstanding the increase 
in her wages, the small gifts which she bestowed upon 
her, Germinie never bought herself anything — had 
no dresses, no linens. What did she do with her 
money.^ She had almost acknowledged having 
drawn her eighteen hundred francs from the Sav- 
ings Bank. 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


131 


Mademoiselle thought it all over, and decided that 
this was her maid’s secret: she had debts, incurred 
long since for her family, and perhaps more recently 
for that “rascal of a brother-in-law.” She had 
such a generous heart, and so little command over 
it! She did not understand the value of money. 
It was only that, mademoiselle was certain; and as 
she was aware of her maid’s obstinacy, and had no 
hope of changing her, she said nothing about it. 
When that explanation did not entirely satisfy the 
old lady, she ascribed that which was incompre- 
hensible in her maid to the disposition of a woman 
somewhat fond of mystery, jealous of her small 
affairs, and given to locking up within herself all 
pertaining to herself, as the villagers collect their 
sous in woolen stockings. Or, again, she per- 
suaded herself that it was her illness, her suffering 
condition, which caused her to be so crotchety; 
and she fell asleep, reassured. 

How could mademoiselle divine Germinie’s degra- 
dation and the horror of her secret.? Amidst her 
greatest trials, in her intoxicated condition, the 
unhappy woman guarded it with incredible tact. 
Never did there escape from her lips a sentence, 
a word, that could cast any light on her affairs. 
"Sorrow, scorn, grief, sacrifice, the loss of her child, 
her lover’s treason, the agony of her love; were all 
locked securely within her heart, j Those feverish 


122 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


caresses lavished upon mademoiselle, those sudden 
effusions, always terminated without a confession 
in a burst of tears. Even illness, with its weak- 
ness and its enervating effects, drew nothing from 
her. Hysterical attacks drew from her cries, and 
nothing but cries, ^he closed her lips firmly when 
she slept^ Fearing that her mistress might per- 
ceive by her breath that she drank, she ate garlic, 
thus destroying the fumes of the liquor^ 

^--When in a state of intoxication — when in a 
stupor — she managed to rouse herself on mademoi- 
selle’s approach, and to remain awake while in her 
presence. 

if^he thus led a double lifey She was like two dis- 
tinct women, and by force of energy, with feminine 
diplomacy, with a presence of mind which never 
deserted her, even when under the influence of 
alcohol, she succeeded in keeping those two exist- 
ences separate — in living both without confusing 
the two characters — in retaining when near made- 
moiselle the semblance of respectabilityT^There was 
no word, no sign, that could awaken a suspicion of 
her clandestine lifePl On setting foot in mademoi- 
selle’s room — on approaching her, on finding herself 
face to face with her — she assumed the attitude of a 
woman who would ward off even the thought of 
the approach of a man!^ She spoke freely of all 
things as if she had nothing to blush for. She was 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


123 


bitter against the faults of others, as if she were 
blameless^ She spoke jocularly of love to her 
mistress, without embarrassment; one might have 
thought she was talking of an old acquaintance 
who was lost to sight?) 

^here was about that woman of thirty-five, to 
all those who only saw her as did Mile, de Varan- 
deuil, a certain atmosphere of chastity, of strict and 
unimpeachable respectability, peculiar to old serv- 
ants and plain women. (^11 this was, however, 
not hypocrisy in Germinie; it did not arise from 
perverse duplicity, from corrupt calculation. It was 
her affectionate consideration for mademoiselle 
which made her appear, when with her, as she was; 
she wished at any cost to spare her the sorrow of 
penetrating her inmost depths?) She deceived her 
solely to preserve her love;') in the horrible comedy 
she was actuated by a holy, almost religious senti- 
ment, similar to that of a daughter deceiving her 
mother in order not to grieve he^ 


124 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


XXXVII 


could do no more than deceive, Germinie 
told herself! She could not leave the place — even 
an attempt to depart would have been vain. She 
was conquered and cowardly, for she was bound to 
that man by all manner of low and degrading ties — 
even by his contempt, which he no longer concealed 
from her! Sometimes, upon reflection, she was 
startled. The superstitions of her youth whispered 
to her that a spell had been cast over her; without 
that, would she have been as she was.^ Would she 
have belonged to him so utterly — have obeyed him 
as a beast obeys its master.^* 

^/^l^ong and bitterly did she recall all that she had 
received in return for her devotion — his disdain, his 

’ insults, corrupt demands upon her; while she was 
forced to own that for him she had spared no sacri- 
fice, no mortification. She tried to pick out the 
degree of abasement to which her love had refused 
to descend, and she could not. (lie could treat her as 
he would — insult her, beat her — she was his still !^ 
She could not fancy herself without him; that man 
was necessary to her; she lived, she breathed for 


gMmINJE LACERTEUX 125 

hirn;| there did not seem to be a case similar to 
hciS among the women in her station, j Not one of 
her comrades suffered the harshness, the bitterness, 
the torture, the happiness that she did} To her- 
self, she appeared peculiarly constituted — different 
from others — with a temperament like that of an 
animal that is attached to the person who ill-treats 
it.\ There were days when she did not know her- 
self — when she questioned if she were the same 
woman. In reviewing all the base actions into 
which Jupillon had forced her, she could scarcely 
believe that it was she who had submitted. (^She, 
who had been quick-tempered, impulsive, full of 
ardent passions, of rebellion, had become docile 
and submissive, y She had restrained her anger, 
had suppressed the thoughts of murder which had 
so many times entered her mind; she had always 
obeyed, always been patient, and bowed her head, 
^^t that man’s feet she had laid her character, her 
instincts, her pride, her vanity, and more than 
that, her jealousy. ) 

i^ln order to watch over him, she had shared him 
with others — permitted him to have other loves, 
received him from the hands of others — had sought 
upon his cheek a spot which his cousin had not 
kissed! N And after all her self-denial, she retained 
her hold upon him by a more mortifying means. 
She drew him to her by gifts; she opened her purse 


126 


GERMimE LACERTEUX 


to him, that he might indulge his pleasures, his 
caprices. 

So she lived from day to day, in dread of what 
the miserable man might ask of her-fV” 


GERMINIE LACEkTEUX 


127 


XXXVIII 

Jl^must have twenty francs,” Germinie repeated 
mechanically several times; but her thoughts did 
not go beyond the words she muttered. 

Her walk, mounting to the fifth floor, had tired 
her. She dropped into the greasy easy-chair in 
her kitchen, bent her head, rested her arm on the 
table. Her brain was confused. Her only thought 
was: “I must have twenty francs — twenty francs — 
twenty francs;” and she glanced around her as if 
Peking them in the chimney, in the dust-basket, 
under the stove. 

Then she tried to recall the names of those who 
owed her; she remembered a German maid who 
had promised to pay her more than a year before. 
She rose, tied her bonnet-strings. She did not 
say “I must have twenty francs,” but “I will have 
them..” 

She went down to Adele: “Have you twenty 
francs with which to pay this bill that has been 
brought in? Mademoiselle has gone out.” 

“Alas, no!” said Adele; “I loaned my last twenty 
francs to madame last night. Will thirty sous do.?” 


i28 GERMWIE LACERTEUX 

She went to the grocer’s. It was Sunday — three 
o’clock; the shop was closed. 

There were a number of people at the green- 
grocer’s; she asked for four sous’ worth of herbs. 

“I have no money,” said she. She hoped the 
woman would say, “Do you want some.^” But 
instead she said: “That is fine — as if we were 
afraid!” 

She left the shop without speaking. 

“Is there nothing for us.?” she asked the porter. 
“Ah! say, have you twenty francs, Pipelet.? That 
will save me a journey upstairs.” 

“Forty, if you want them.” 

She breathed more freely. The porter walked 
toward a cupboard at the other end of his lodge. 

“Ah, my wife has taken the key. How pale 
you are!” 

“It is nothing.” And she rushed toward the 
servants’ staircase. As she ascended, these were 
her thoughts: 

“Mademoiselle just paid me five days ago: I can- 
not ask her. Still, what are twenty francs more 
or less to her. It is a pity; the grocer would surely 
have lent them to me.” 

She had reached her floor. She leaned over the 
balusters of the front staircase to assure herself 
that no one was coming, entered, went directly to 
mademoiselle’s room, opened the window, drew a 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


129 


deep breath. The sparrows came from the chim- 
neys round about, thinking she would throw them 
crumbs of bread. She closed the window and 
turned to the chest of drawers upon which stood 
a small wooden cash-box. This she examined first, 
then the key — a steel key — left in the lock. 


uddenly she thought she heard a ring. She 
opened the door; no one was there. She returned, 
took a duster from the kitchen, and began to rub a 
mahogany chair, turning her back to the chest of 
drawers. Still she could see the box; she saw it 
open; she saw the corner at the right where 
mademoiselle kept her money — the small packages 
in which it was rolled — her twenty francs were 
there. She closed her eyes as if they were daz- 
zled. She felt the tempter in her soul, 
immediately she was disgusted with herself. In 
that moment her honor lay between her hand and 
that key.") Her past of disinterestedness — of devo- 
tion — twenty years of resistance of evil counsel and 
corruption — twenty years of disdain of theft — twenty 
years in which her pocket had never held a far- 
thing that was not honestly hers — twenty years of 
indifference to lucre — twenty years in which tempta- 
tion had not assailed her, the confidence reposed 
in her by mademoiselle — all appeared to her in that 
moment?] Her youthful days rose before her; the 

Germinie Lacerteux 9 


130 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


memory of her parents’ honorable but humble 
name — and for that moment she was saved. 

Then insensibly evil thoughts, one by one, crept 
into her brain. She sought an excuse for ingrati- 
tude to her mistress. She compared her wages 
with the wages of the other maids in the house. 
She concluded that mademoiselle had accumulated 
money since she had been with her. And why, 
she asked herself suddenly, had she left the key to 
her cash-box Then she began to reason that the 
money which lay there was not money on which 
to live, but mademoiselle’s savings, with which to 
buy a velvet dress for some god-daughter — money 
that lay idle, she told herself again. 

She hurriedly invented excuses. Then she 
said: 

“It is only for once. She would lend them to 
me if I asked her — and I will put them back.” 

,.-“\She put out her hand and turned the key. She 
stopped. It seemed to her as if the very silence 
was watching, listening to he^^J She raised her 
eyes; the mirror reflected her face. She was afraid 
of her own face! She recoiled with fear and shame; 
she had the head of a thief upon her shoulders! 
She fled to the corridor. Suddenly she turned 
upon her heel, went up to the cash-box, turned 
the key, put her hand under the hair medallions 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


131 


and trinkets, took a coin at random, shut the box, 
and rushed into the kitchen. She held the money 
in her hand, and dared not look at 


132 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


XXXIX 

was from that time that Germinie’s abasement, 
her degradation, became visible in her person — 
stupefied her, in fact. Her senses grew dull; she 
was no longer quick of perception. That which she 
had read, had learned, seemed to have escaped 
her. Her memory, once so retentive, grew con- 
fused; her face, formerly so bright and intelligent, 
dull and inanimate. One could again see in her 
the stupid peasant-girl she had been on arriving 
from the country, when she had asked for ginger- 
bread at a stationer’s. She seemed not to under- 
stand. Mademoiselle was obliged to explain to 
her, to repeat two or three times what she desired, 
before Germinie grasped her meaning. She asked 
the girl, on seeing her thus, so dull and half asleep, 
if her maid had not been changed. 

^‘You are getting foolish then,’^ she said to her 
^several times, impatiently. She could remember 
when Germinie had been so useful to her in recall- 
ing a date, an address, keeping account of the day 
on which they had brought in the wood or tapped 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


133 


a butt of wine — minor points which escaped her 
memory. Germinie now remembered nothing. 

In the evening, when she made up the accounts 
with mademoiselle, she could not recollect what 
she had bought in the morning. She would say, 
“Wait,” with an uncertain gesture; but nothing 
came to her. 

^"^Mademoiselle, to spare her weak eyes, had be_ 
come accustomed to having her read the newspaper 
aloud to her; Germinie in a short while read so 
hesitatingly, with so little intelligence, that the old 
lady was forced to stop her. Her intellect becom- 
ing weakened to such a degree, her body also re- 
laxed. C^he paid no attention to her toilet — was 
not even tidy;^ she wore dresses spotted with 
grease and torn under the arms, tattered aprons, 
stockings in holes, worn shoes. ^ Formerly she had 
been proud of her linen; no dne in the house had 
fresher-looking bonnets; her collars were always 
so white, and gave her such a neat appearance. 
Now she had soiled, rumpled bonnets, which 
looked as if she had slept in them. She wore no 
cuffs, and her collars were always dirty. An air 
of misery and dejection pervaded her whole being. 
Sometimes it was so noticeable that Mile, de 

Varandeuil could not resist saying to her:'^- 

^^‘Come, my girl, this will not do; you look like 
a pauper.” 


134 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


; On the street she scarcely looked as if she be- 
longed to any one respectable. She had lost the 
aspect of a servant upon whom was reflected the 
pride of her mistress. Day by day she sank into 
that most untidy and abject of creatures — a slov^in^ 
'^Neglectful of herself, she neglected all around 
her. She did not set things to rights, she did not 
clean, she did not scrub. She allowed disorder 
and dirt to reign in mademoiselle’s apartments, 
that little home the neatness of which had always 
been her pleasure and pride. The dust accumu- 
lated, spiders spun their webs, the windows were 
dirty, the mahogany furniture grew dull. Moths 
ate the carpets, which were never touched with 
brush nor broom. A dozen times mademoiselle 
had tried to pique Germinie’s amour-propre (self- 
respect) with regard to the state of things, and 
one day the old lady ventured to write Germinie’s 
name on her mirror; her maid did not forgive her 
for a week, so mademoiselle resigned herself to her ^ 
fate. When she saw Germinie was good-natured, 
she would say gently: 

“You must confess, my child, that the dust is 
very thick here!’' 

Mademoiselle replied with a pitiful accent to the 
astonishment and observation of the friends who 
still came to see her, and whom Germinie was forced 
to admit; 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


135 


“Yes, it is dirty — I know that very well! But 
what shall I do? Germinie is ill, and I prefer that 
she should not kill herself.” 

Occasionally, when Germinie had gone out, she 
^^e her chest of drawers or a picture-frame a dust- 
ing — hurrying through it, fearing a scolding or a 
scene should her maid enter and see her. Germinie 
worked scarcely any; she prepared very little food. 
She reduced her mistress’ breakfast and dinner to 
the simplest fare. She made her bed without turn- 
ing the mattress. 

Never was she the servant she had been, except 
on those days when mademoiselle gave a dinner, at 
which a number of covers were laid for the children 
invited. At such times Germinie, as if by magic, 
issued from her state of idleness, of apathy, and 
drawing upon her strength in a kind of fever, she 
regained her former activity. 

^/^“^ademoiselle was surprised to see her requiring 
no aid, prepare a dinner in several hours for ten 
persons, serve and remove it with the sprightliness 
of her youths 


136 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


XL 


“No; this time, no,” said Germinie, rising from 
the foot of Jupillon’s bed, upon which she had been 
seated. “You do not know, then, that I have not 
a sou — not a sou. You have not seen the stock- 
ings I wear!” And, raising her skirt, she showed him 
her stockings, full of holes, and tied with selvages. 
“I have nothing. Money Why, on mademoi- 
selle’s fete-day, I bought her a bunch of violets for 
a sou. Ah, yes, money! Do you know how I ob- 
tained the last twenty francs.? By taking them 
from mademoiselle’s cash-box! I have replaced 
them. But to do such a thing again — never in 
my life! Anything that you wish, buYnot that — 
not theft! I will do it no more!”-«''*Y' 

^-ilWell, have you finished.?” asked Jupillon. “If 
you had told me that, do you think I would have 
taken them.? I did not think you were so hard 
up; I fancied it would not pinch you to lend me 
twenty francs, which I would return in a week or 
two with the rest. You do not reply. Very well; 
it seems to me, there is no reason for us to get 
angry.” And casting upon Germinie an indefinable 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


137 


glance, he said, “On Thursday, eh?” 

“On Thursday,” said Germinie, desperately. 

However, she would have liked to throw herself 
into Jupillon’s arms, to tell him, “You see, I can- 
not!” but instead, she repeated mechanically, “On 
Thursday!” and left the room. 

^.-When, on Thursday, she knocked at Jupillon’s 
door, she fancied she heard a man’s footsteps. The 
door opened. Before her stood Jupillon’s cousin, 
in a red gown and slippers, with the air of one per- 
fectly at home. Here and there lay her effects; 
Germinie saw them on the furniture for which she 
had paid. 

“Whom does madame wish to see?” the woman 
inquired impertinently. 

“Monsieur Jupillon.” 

“He is not at home.” 

“I will await him,” said Germinie, trying to 
enter. 

“At the porter’s?” asked the cousin, as she barred 
the way. 

“When will he return?” 

^V<When the hens get their teeth,” replied the girl, 
closing the door in Germinie’s face. 


138 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


XLI 



Returning that evening from a christening which 
she could not refuse to attend, mademoiselle heard 


a voice in her room. She thought some one was 
with Germinie, and, much surprised, she opened 
the door. By the light of a smoking candle she at 
first could distinguish no one; but, on looking 
more closely, she discovered her maid lying at the 
foot of her bed. 

Germinie was talking in her sleep. Her voice 
at first was low, and her words breathed like sighs. 

she loves me a great deal — if she were not 


dead! But we will be very happy now — will we not.? 


No, no! It is done — so much the worse. I do not 
want to speak of it!” 

Mademoiselle with a shudder bent over that 
form. She listened to the voice the speaker her- 
self did not hear. A sensation of horror possessed 
her; she felt as if she were standing beside a 
corpse reawakening to life. The disconnected 
words which fell from Germinie’ s lips were, as far 
as mademoiselle could understand, reproaches. Her 
voice was very different from its natural tones. It* 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


139 


changed from accents of tenderness, of anguish, to 
accents of reproach, of irony, bitter and implaca- 
ble, ending in a nervous laugh. Mademoiselle was 
mystified. She listened as if at the theater; never 
had she heard off the stage such haughty disdain, 
nor scorn break into such laughter. 

At length Germinie awoke and rose from the bed 
hastily, seeing that her mistress had returned. 

“Thank you! Do not inconvenience yourself!” 
the latter said to her — “spreading yourself upon 
my bed like this!” 

“Oh, mademoiselle, I was not where you lay 
your head. Pardon me!” 

“Will you tell me then of what you were dream- 
ing.? There seemed to be a man; you were quarrel- 
ing.” 

“I.?” asked Germinie. “I do not remember.” 

And she began in silence to help her mistress to 
disrobe. 


140 


GERMINIE L/ICERTEUX 


XLII 

Soon mademoiselle was surprised by a complete 
change in her maid’s manners and habits. Ger- 
minie no longer displayed that sullenness, that ill- 
temper, that fault-finding disposition. She emerged 
suddenly from her idleness with renewed vigor. 
She spent very little time at her marketing; she 
seemed to shun the streets. At night she did not 
go out. She scarcely left mademoiselle’s side; she 
hovered around her, watching her from the time 
she rose until she retired, taking a care of her that 
was almost irritating — not permitting her to rise, 
not even to stretch out her hand to reach any- 
thing — waiting upon her, watching her like a child. 
At times annoyed by that attention, mademoiselle 
was on the point of saying to her: 

“Ah, will you ever leave me in peace 
^^,But Germinie would smile upon her, a smile so 
sad and tender, that she checked her impatience, 
and the girl continued to remain near her. All her 
affection seemed at that moment to be centered 
in mademoiselle. Her voice, her gestures, her 
eyes, her silence, her thoughts, all turned to her 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


141 


mistress with the ardor of an atonement, the con- 
trition of a prayer, the transport of adoration. She 
loved her with all the tender force of her nature. 
She wished to lavish upon her all the devotion she 
had withdrawn from another. Daily her love em« 
braced more closely, more fervently, the old lady, 
who felt herself revived by the warmth of the 
attachment encircling her in her old age. • 


142 


GERM IN IE LACERTEU 


XLIII 

the memory of the past and her debts 
haunted her as she repeated: 

“If mademoiselle knew!” 

She lived in fear, in trembling. There was not 
a ring at the door that she did not say to herself: 
“There it is!” Letters in a strange handwriting 
filled her with anxiety. She hid them in her 
pocket; she hesitated about giving them up, and 
the moment when mademoiselle opened and glanced 
through the dreaded paper, was to her as full of 
emotion as to one awaiting sentence of death. 

She felt her secret and her deceit to be in the 
hands of every one. All in the house were aware 
of this; the neighbors knew of it. About her there 
was no one but her mistress whose esteem she 
could steal. 

On ascending, on descending the stairs, she felt 
the porter’s eye upon her — an eye which smiled, 
which seemed to say,“ I know!” She dared not call 
him familiarly: “MyPipelet.” When she returned 
from market, she peeped into her basket. “I am 
very fond of that,” the porter’s wife would say, 


GEKMINIE LACERTEUX 


143 


when there was a choice morsel of anything; 
at night she gave her what remained of the deli- 
cacy. She ate nothing herself, but almost main- 
tained the woman and her husband. She feared 
her neighbors as much as she did the lodge-keeper. 

There was in every shop a face which reflected 
her disgrace, and speculated on her shame. At 
each step she was forced to purchase silence. If 
she found anything too expensive, a jeer reminded 
her that the tradesmen were her masters, and that 
she must pay if she would not be denounced. A 
hint, an allusion, caused her to turn pale. 

The successor of Mme. Jupillon, who had left to 
open a grocer’s shop at Bar sur Aube, sold her poor 
milk, and when Germinie told the woman that her 
mistress found fault with it and scolded her every 
morning, the woman replied: 

“Your mistress scolds you, does she.?” 

At the green-grocer’s, when she asked if a cer- 
tain fish was fresh, the man said to her: 

“Well, why don’t you say at once that I have 
put something in the gills to make it appear fresh!” 

Mademoiselle wanted her to get some things at 
the market; she mentioned the fact before the green- 
grocer. 

“Ah, yes, at the market; I would like to see you 
go to the market!” 

The grocer imposed upon her by selling her coffee 


144 


GERMINIH LACERTEUX 


which smelt like snuff, stale biscuits and fruit; 
when she made so bold as to object, these words 
were hurled at her: 

“Ah, bah! you need not find fault with me! I 
tell you, the things are good.” 


GERMlNlE LACERTEUX 


145 


XLIV 


/^It caused Germinie a pang — yet a pang which 
she courted — as she fetched mademoiselle’s daily 
paper, to pass by on her way a school for young 
girls. Often she stopped at the gate at the hour 
for breaking up. From the narrow, dark passage 
the little ones ran as from an open cage, pell-mellr^^, 
gamboling in the sunshine. This swarm at first 
pushed, jostled one another. Then they formed 
groups. (Tiny hands slipped into others as tiny, 
friend hung upon the arm of friend, while some 
threw their arms around the necks of companions, 
sharing with them their bread and butteh^ Then 
all strolled up the dirty street; the tallest, who 
were about ten years old, stopping at gateways to 
chat like little women. The youngest amused 
themselves by wetting their boots in the puddles. 
Some put on their heads cabbage-leaves picked up 
from the ground, forming a green bonnet, from be- 
neath which laughed their fresh, bright faces. 

Germinie watched them — followed them. She 
could not take her eyes from those little arms carry- 
ing their school-bags, those little legs encased in 

Germinie Lacerteux iO 


146 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


woolen stockings. ^There was something divine 
about those blonde heads."^ Their numbers decreased. 
Each street took some of the children. The sound 
of their footsteps gradually died away. Germinie 
followed the last remaining ones. 

^One day, as she recalled her own child, she was 
suddenly seized with a desire to embrace one of 
those children; she grasped one by the arm in the 
manner of a kidnaper. 

‘‘Mamma! mamma!” cried the frightened little 
one, escaping from her. 

Germinie fled. 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


147 


XLV 

succeeded day — for Germinie all equally deso- 
late and sad. She no longer expected anything of 
fortune. Her life seemed forever buried in despair; 
she was doomed to continue her existence in the 
same groove of unhappiness, straight before her 
lying the shadowy pathway, at its end — Death. 
There could be no future for her. Yet from the 
midst of her despondency, thoughts at times caused 
her to raise her head and look about her at the 
present. At times the illusion of a lingering hope 
smiled upon her. 

^It seemed to her that she could once more be 
happy, were certain things to come to pass. Then 
she pictured those things to herself. She linked 
impossibilities together. Gradually that delirium 
of hope vanished. She told herself that it was im- 
possible — that what she had dreamed of could not 
be, and she sat in her chair, reflecting dejectedly. 
In a few moments she rose, walked slowly and 
unsteadily to the cupboard, took down the coffee- 
pot, resolved to try her fortune.^.. 

.Her luck, her misfortunes, the future lay in that 


148 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


fortune-teller of the lower classes — in that plate 
into which she had emptied the coffee-grounds. 
She mixed water with them, breathed upon them 
religiously. Then, leaning forward, her eyes fixed 
on the plate, she gazed at those small particles, 
discovering in them forms, letters, signs. She 
separated the grains with her fingers, in order to 
be able to see them more clearly. She turned the 
plate slowly, examining the mystery from all sides, 
and seeking in it appearances, images, names, the 
outlines of objects and initials-^signs of any shape 
that would predict her victory. 

-^Under the tension of her gaze the grounds 
assumed forms. Her trials, her hatred, and faces 
that she detested appeared by degrees on that 
magic plate, on the plan of fate. The candle be- 
side her, which she had forgotten to snuff, flickered; 
the hour grew late; but, as if petrified by anguish, 
Germinie remained riveted to the spot, alone, and 
face to face with the future, trying to distinguish 
among the coffee-grounds her fate, until she fancied 
she perceived a cross by the side of a woman bear- 
ing a resemblance to Jupillon’s cousin — a cross, the 
emblem of approaching dissolution! «s/ 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


149 


XLVI 

love Germinie had lost, and which she had 
not the power to resist, became thus the torment 
of her life — an unceasing and abominable torment. 
She longed for it, she had to struggle against it. 
For weeks, for months, for years, she was tempted 
without yielding, without accepting another lover. 
Fearing herself, she fled from men — from the sight 
of them. She became unsociable, and a stay-at- 
home, shut in with mademoiselle, or in her room 
above. Sundays she did not go out. She had 
dropped all intercourse with the other maids in the 
house, and in order to employ her time and forget 
her troubles, she either sewed or slept. 

-When strolling musicians entered the court, she 
closed the windows, that she should not hear them, 
for the sweet strains of music softened her heartrv 
^Notwithstanding all this, she could not calm her- 
self; the tempter within her could not be quieted; 
the blood coursed warmly through her veins; she 
dreaded herself, her lack of strength to withstand 
the promptings of her passion.^ 


150 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


XLVII 

^The moment arrived when Germinie gave up the 
contest. Her conscience was quieted, her will 
bent — she succumbed to her fate. What remained 
to her of resolution, of energy, of courage, van- 
ished beneath the distressing convictions of her 
inability to escape from herself. She felt herself 
in the midst of a constantly flowing tide which it 
was useless, almost impious, to try to stem. 

^That great power which causes suffering in the 
world. Fatality, crushed her, and Germinie bowed 
her head beneath its iron heel. As she recalled 
the bitterness of her past life — when she traced 
from her infancy her miserable existence, that 
chain of misfortunes which had followed her and 
grown with years without the hand of that Provi- 
dence of which she had heard so much being out- 
stretched to her — she concluded that she was one 
of those unhappy creatures consecrated at birth to 
eternal misery; one of those for whom happiness 
was not made, who could only look on at that hap- 
piness, so enviable, of others. 

She fed upon that thought, and by dint of repeat- 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


151 


ing to herself the continuity of her misfortunes, and 
the. rapid succession of her troubles, she began to 
find ill-luck in the petty trials of life, in her duties. 

A small amount of money which she borrowed 
and could not repay, an errand poorly done, a pur- 
chase in which she was cheated — all was not owing 
to any fault of hers, but to that of Fate, which was 
conspiring against her, and persecuted her in all 
things from the greatest to the least, from the 
death of her child to the groceries that were in- 
ferior. There were days on which she broke what- 
soever she touched; she made herself believe that 
she was cursed even to her finger-tips. 

^Cursed! almost damned!” She had persuaded 
herself of that when she interrogated her body, 
her senses. She had only one sentence on her 
lips — one sentence which was the refrain of her 
thoughts: “'What do you want.^^ I am unfortunate 
— I have no luck — I am never successful!” She 
uttered those words like a woman who had re 
nounced all hope. With the thought each day 
becoming more fixed of having been born under an 
unlucky star, Germinie dreaded every common 
occurrence of her daily life. She lived in a cow- 
ardly dread of the unforeseen; a ring at the bell 
startled her; a letter in an unknown hand inspired 
her with such fear that she scarcely dared open it; 
a word addressed to her caused the perspiration to 


152 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


start from every pore. (" Finally she attained to 
that supreme disdain, to that limit of endurance, 
when the excess of grief resembles irony, when sor- 
row, passing beyond the bonds of human strength, 
overreaches its sensibility, and when the broken 
heart which no longer feels the blows says to the 
heaven it braves, “ Again !’0 







GERM 11^ IE LACERTEUX 


15S 


XLVIII 

'"“Where are you going like that?” said Germinie 
one Sunday morning to Adele, who passed through 
the corridor of the sixth story, very gayly dressed. 

“I am going to a picnic. There are a lot of us: 
fat Marie — you know her; Elisa, the big, and little 
Badiniers; and there are men, too! I am going 
with my swain, the new one, the fencing-master; 
then there is one of his friends, a painter. We are 
going to Vincennes. Each one is to take some- 
thing. We shall eat on the grass; the men will 
pay for the liquor. We shall have a jolly time, I 
assure you!” 

“I will g6, too,” said Germinie. 

“You? Very well; there will be plenty of beaux 
for you.” 

..^Half an hour later the two women set out, and 
met the rest of their party in front of a cafe. After 
drinking some currant wine, they entered two large 
wagons and rolled away. 

Arrived at Vincennes, they got out of their 
vehicles at the fort; as they passed along its walls, 
the fencing-master’s friend, the painter, cried to an 
artillery-man on duty near a cannon: 


154 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


“Say, old man, wouldn’t you rather take a drink 
than stand guard, eh?” 

“Isn’t he comical?” said Adele to Germinie, 
nudging her with her elbow. 

/ Soon they reached the woods of Vincennes. 
Narrow paths, well-beaten, full of tracks, crossed 
each other in every direction. Between those 
paths were squares of grass, but grass trodden 
down, parched, yellow, dead, entangled with brush- 
wood. This spot could be easily recognized as one 
of those rural places which on Sundays is made a 
retreat for picnicers. The trees were unevenly 
spaced; there were small elms, with gray trunks 
stained a leprous yellow, pruned to the height of a 
man; sickly oaks, eaten by caterpillars, having only 
the net-work of their leaves. The verdure and foli- 
age presented a sorry appearance; not a bird 
chirped in the branches, not an insect was to be 
seen on the ground. Nature seemed to be brought 
thither from the streets. The noise of the organs 
silenced the birds. From the trees hung women’s 
hats, fastened in a handkerchief with four pins. 
An artillery-man’s top-knot could be occasionally 
caught a glimpse of; peanut-venders sprang from 
the thickets. On the bare lawn children whittled, 
laborers’ families drank in pleasure, boys caught 
butterflies in their caps. 

/ It was one of those woods in the style of the old 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


1&5 


Bois de Boulogne, dusty and burnt — a common 
promenade — one of those places with little 
shade. 

( >The heat on this especial day was stifling. The 
ir was heavy; not a leaf stirred. The party of 
pleasure-seekers proceeded gayly on their way with 
that joyous activity inspired by the country in 
people of their class. The men ran, the women 
caught up to them; some wanted to dance, others 
to climb trees, while the painter amused himself 
by throwing pebbles from a distance into the loop- 
holes of the fortress gate. 

^ Finally, all of the company seated themselves in 
a kind of glade, at the foot of a group of oaks. 
The men smoked; the women chatted, laughed, and 
were very hilarious. Germinie only was silent. 
She did not hear, she did not see those people. 
Her eyes, beneath their lowered lashes, were fixed 
upon the ground. Wrapt in her own thoughts, she 
was scarcely conscious of being in the midst of so 
much gayety. Stretched full-length upon the grass, 
her head somewhat raised by a clod of earth, she 
made no movement but to rest the palms of her 
hands flat upon the grass beside her; then, in a 
short while she turned them over in order to feel 
the cool earth upon her burning skin. 

“Adele,” said a woman’s voice, “sing something 
for us.” 


156 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


“Ah,” replied Adele, “I cannot sing before eat- 
ing.” 

Suddenly a large stone fell close to Germinie, 
near her head; at the same time she heard the 
painter’s voice cry to her: 

“Do not be frightened — that is your seat.” 

^ Each one spread a handkerchief on the ground 
in place of a table-cloth. They took the food from 
greasy papers. The bottles uncorked, the wine 
went the rounds. The painter carved and made 
paper boats to hold the salt. Gradually the com- 
pany became animated. Hand clasped hand, lips 
met, arms were twined about waists. 

Germinie, however, maintained silence and drank. 
The painter, who was seated beside her, felt uncom- 
fortable so near that strange woman. Suddenly he 
began to beat his knife against his glass to drown 
the noise about him, and rising, he said, in a voice 
like that of a parrot that has crowed too much: 

. — Ladies, I am unhappy. I am a widower! I, 
who revel in love, have no wife! That is a depri- 
vation for a mature man. No wife! And there 
are so many ladies! I cannot, however, walk about 
with a sign on me which says: ‘A man to let ; present 

address, . ’ I say this, ladies, to inform you 

that if among your friends there is any one who 
would like to become acquainted — object matri- 
mony — I am her servant — Victor Mederic Gaut- 


f 'Ti 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


157 


ruche! This is the prospectus: Forty-nine years 
of age; a head with no more hair than a billiard- 
ball; feet as long as — I won’t make any compari- 
sons; a person no longer young; you understand I 
do not require a princess. Well, indeed, here she is!” 

Germinie had seized Gautruche’s glass, emptied 
half of its contents, and held toward him the side 
from which she had drunk. 

Night closed in; the picnicers turned their steps 
homeward. At the fortress, Gautruche carved a 
large heart on a stone, and each one put his or her 
name beneath the date cut in it.-^ 

That night Gautruche and Germinie passed along 
the boulevards together, and entered a house over 
the entrance to which was inscribed in black letters, 
“Hotel of the Little Blue Hand.’j / 


158 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


XLIX 

^ Mederic Gautruche was a mechanic who made a 
holiday of life. Always a trifle intoxicated — drunk 
in the evening when he was not in the day-time — 
he saw life through a clouded brain. Ennui, cares 
had no hold on him; and when by chance a serious 
or gloomy thought occurred to him, he turned away 
his head, uttered a sound like “pstt!” which was 
his manner of saying “zut;” and raising his right 
arm toward heaven, caricaturing the gesture of a 
Spanish dancer, he cast his melancholy over his 
shoulders — to the “deuce,” as he expressed it. 

He had a fine philosophy — the tipsy serenity of 
the bottle. He knew neither envy nor covetous- 
ness. Satisfied with all, he loved all — found amuse- 
ment and mirth in everything. Nothing in the 
world seemed mournful to him — but a glass of 
water! 

To that temperament Gautruche united the 
cheerfulness of his trade, the good nature and ani- 
mation of that craft so free from care, at which he 
amused himself by whistling, perched on a ladder 
above the passers-by. He was the only painter 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


150 


in Paris who would attempt a sign without a meas- 
ure — without an outline in white; he was the only 
one who at a stroke put in its place each letter. 

He, too, was famous for fanciful letters — letters 
shaded, picked out in bronze or gold. He earned 
from fifteen to twenty francs a day; but as he drank 
a great deal, he saved nothing, and was always in 
debt at the public-house. 

He was a man of the streets. The street ha<T^/ 
been his mother, his nurse, his school. The street 
had cultivated his assurance, his spirit. He had 
gathered a fund of intelligence from the sidewalks of 
Paris. His stock was inexhaustible. His speech 
abounded in happy thoughts and metaphors. He 
was full of amusing stories. He frequented all the 
music-halls and wine-cellars, was familiar with all 
the popular ballads, and sang them unwearyingly. 

He was a droll fellow, every inch of him. To look 
at him made one laugh. A man of such spirits, of 
such a lively nature, fell to Germinie; nor was she 
such a slave to duty that she had nothing but her 
work on her mind; she, too, had been fashioned, 
formed by a Parisian education. 

Mile, de Varandeuil having nothing to do, and 
being curious, like all old people, to hear the gossip 
of the neighborhood, had made Germinie relate to 
her what news she could glean — what she knew 
about the tenants — all the tittle-tattle of the house 


160 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


and street; and that habit of narrating, of convers- 
ing with her mistress as a sort of companion, of 
describing people, of outlining silhouettes, had de- 
veloped in her an ease of expression and a keenness 
and piquancy of observation very odd, coming from 
the lips of a servant. 

^^^he had often surprised Mile, de Varandeuil by 
her quickness of comprehension, her promptness in 
grasping things only half-told, her readiness and 
ease in finding the means of expressing herself. 
She understood pleasantry. She never made a 
mistake, and when there was any discussion on 
orthography at the creamery, she always decided it. 
She had, too, that fund of confused knowledge pos- 
sessed by the women of her class who have literary 
tendencies. She had spent many an evening devour- 
ing novels; in addition to that she read the papers 
and clippings from papers, and she had retained a 
vague idea of many occurrences and of several kings 
of France. She remembered enough to wish to talk 
with others on those subjects. She had often been 
to the theater with a woman in the neighborhood 
who kept house for an author; on her return she 
could recall the entire play, as well as the names of 
the actors she had seen on the programme. She 
delighted in buying songs, novels for a sou, and read- 
ing them. The air of the “Quartier Breda,” replete 
with the spirit of the artist and the workshop, with 


GERMiNIE LACERTEUX 


161 


art and vice, had whetted Germinie’s tastes, and 
awakened desires within her. 

Some time before her troubles she avoided decent 
society, respectable people of her own class and 
station; she had shunned those sleep-producing 
chats over a cup of tea, which were the fashion 
among the middle-aged servants of the old ladies 
of mademoiselle’s acquaintance. She felt the need 
of associates whose intelligence equaled her own, 
and who would be capable of understanding her. 
And as she issued from her state of stupefaction, 
as she revived and felt the necessity of amusing 
herself with those equals within her reach, she 
wanted about her men who awoke mirth, who 
were gay and fond of liquor. And it was for that 
reason she turned to that Bohemian rascal, noisy, 
boisterous, and a tippler like all Bohemians; there- 
fore she turned to Gautruche. 


Cerminie Lacerteux it 


iG3 


GBRMINIE UCERTEUX 


L 

^When Germinie returned home one morning at 
daybreak, she heard a voice call to her from the 
shadows of the court-yard: 

“Who goes there?” 

She rushed up the servants’ staircase, but she 
knew she was pursued; soon she was grasped by 
the arm on a landing-place, and the porter’s voice 
said, as he recognized her: 

“Oh, it is you? Excuse me! Do not make 
yourself uneasy! You are astonished, eh, to see 
me up so early? It is on account of the theft com- 
mitted in the cook’s room — the cook on the second 
floor. Well, good-night! You are indeed lucky 
that I am not a gossip.” 

Several days after that, Germinie learned from 
Adele that the cook’s husband had said that there 
would be no need to seek very far for the thief — 
that she was in that house. Adele added that it 
was being talked of in the street, and that there 
were people who repeated, believed it. Germinie, 
in great indignation, told all to her mistress. 
Mademoiselle, rendered even more indignant than 


CERMINIB LACERTEUX 


163 


Germinie, and personally wounded by the insult 
offered her maid, wrote at once to the servant’s 
mistress, requesting her to compel her domestic to 
cease the calumnies directed against a girl who had 
lived with her twenty years, and for whom she 
would answer as for herself. 

The servant was reprimanded. In his rage he 
spoke more strongly still. For several days he 
declared his intention of going to the commissioner 
of the police to require him to ask Germinie with 
what money she had furnished apartments for 
Mme. Jupillon’s son; with what money she had 
bought him a substitute; with what money she had 
paid the expenses of her friends. For an entire 
week the terrible threat hung over Germinie’ s head; 
finally the thief was discovered, and the threat was 
not carried out. But it had its effect upon the poor 
girl: it caused her reason to totter. It upset that 
mind so ready to take affright; she lost her presence 
of mind, discretion, neatness, and appreciation of 
things; she yielded to absurd fancies, to distressing 
presentiments; was affected by her fears as if they 
were realities, her only refuge being this thought: 
“Bah! I will kill myself!”'^ 

^-.During that week her fevered brain reviewed all 
the events that possibly might take place. By 
day, by night, she saw her disgrace exposed, made 
public; she saw her. secret, her cowardly actions. 


1^4 


cerMInW UckkTEUk 


her errors — all that she had concealed within her 
bosom — brought to light, disclosed — disclosed to 
mademoiselle! Her debts for Jupillon, increased 
by her debts for liquor and food for Gautruche that 
she had bought on credit — her debts to the porter, to 
the trades-people — would be exposed, and ruin her! 

A shudder crept over her at the thought; she 
fancied mademoiselle sending her away! 

^^During that week she pictured herself as being 
brought before the police commissioner. For eight 
whole days she was ruled by this thought and this 
word — the law! the law as the fancy of the lower 
classes paints it, as something terrible, indefinable, 
inevitable — a power of evil which appears in the 
black robe of a judge between the policeman and 
executioner, with the hands of the police and the 
arms of the guillotine! 

- She who had all those instincts of fear — she who 
often declared that she would rather die than go 
into a court-room — saw herself seated on a bench 
between the gendarmes, in a tribunal, tn the midst 
of that great unknown of which her ignorance had 
such a dread. During that week her ears heard 
upon the stairs footsteps coming to arrest her. The 
shock was too great for nerves as much shaken as 
were hers. Her sense of agony aroused in her the 
thought of suicide. She began to ponder, her 
head between her hands, on that which spoke to 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


165 


her of deliverance; for hours she sat at her kitchen 
window, her eyes fixed upon the pavement below; 
as the day drew on, she leaned more heavily against 
the unsteady bar at the window, hoping it would 
give way, praying for death, yet not strong enough 
to make that desperate leap into space. 

“Why, you will fall!” said mademoiselle to her 
one day, seizing her skirt in terror. “What are 
you looking- at in the court-yard.?” 

“I.? Nothing — the pavement.” 

“Are you mad.? You frightened me very much!” 

“Oh, one could not fall like that,” said Germinie 
with a singular accent. “To fall, one would have 
to make a bold leap.”^^^ 


166 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


LI 

Germinie could not persuade Gautruche to give 
her a key to his room. When he had not returned 
she was compelled to await him below — outside, 
in the street, the darkness, the cold. At first she 
walked to and fro before the house. She passed 
and repassed, took twenty paces, returned. Then 
she would go farther — as far as the end of the boule- 
vard. She walked thus for hours, often, under the 
blazing sun. She passed public-houses, wine-cellars, 
leafless arbors, low hovels, dismal hotels where 
one could obtain lodging for the night. She passed 
shops, closed — sealed, bankrupt — dark passages 
with iron barriers. Still Germinie walked on over 
that ground which was covered by an hospital, a 
slaughter-house, and a cemetery — Lariboisiere, 
r Abattoir, and Montmartre! The laborer on his way 
to Paris, the working- woman returning, her day’s 
work done, her hands under her armpits to keep 
them warm, shameless women in black hoods, 
strolling along, passed her by, and stared at her. 
Those strangers seemed to recognize her; the light 
made her timid. She crossed the boulevard to 


GERM INI E LACERTEUX 


w: 

avoid their glances; she scolded herself, she called 
herself a coward; she declared that this would be 
her last trip — that she would walk as far as a cer- 
tain arbor once more, and then, that would be all, 
for if he had not returned, she would go away. But 
she did not go; she continued her walk; she awaited 
him, and in proportion as he delayed, her desire to 
see him increased. At length the boulevard was 
cleared of pedestrians. Germinie, exhausted, worn 
out with fatigue, drew near the houses. She crept 
from shop to shop — she mechanically sought those 
places where the gas still burned. She tried to 
conquer her impatience. The steaming windows 
of the wine-shops attracted her attention. She 
read the lists of lottery winners placarded in a 
public-house, the inscriptions bearing in yellow 
letters these words: “New wines, the very best 
brands, seventy centimes.” For fifteen minutes 
she gazed into a back room, in which she saw a 
man in a blouse seated on a stool before a table 
on which were a slate and two trays. She stood 
rooted to the spot, almost fainting, seeing every- 
thing as in a dream, hearing only indistinctly the 
dull rumble of the cabs along the boulevards, ready 
to drop, and forced to support herself by leaning 
against the wall. In her disturbed, morbid condi- 
tion, on those evenings when it rained, her fainting- 
spells almost assumed the form of a nightmare. A 


168 


GERM IN IE LACERTEVX 


puddle seemed to her to swell into a deluge; watei’ 
surrounded her, water inclosed her on all sides: 
she closed her eyes, she dared not stir, fearing lest 
her feet might slip. She burst into tears and wept 
until some compassionate fellow-creature gave her 
his arm as far as the “Hotel of the Little Blue 
Hand.»»"\X' 


GERMINIE L/iCERTEUX 


169 


LII 

/'^^^^A.rrived there she entered; it was her last refuge. 
She there escaped from the rain, the snow, cold, 
fear, despair, and fatigue. She ascended the stair- 
case, and seated herself on a landing-place near 
Gautruche’s closed door, drew her shawl and skirts 
closely about her, to allow comers and goers to 
pass, and shrank into a corner to hide her shame. 

From open doors issued the impure air of close 
rooms — where perhaps in a single one families were 
crowded together — the stench of dirty rags, greasy 
fumes from kitchens, the damp odor of drying linens. 
The window, with its broken panes, behind Ger- 
minie, sent forth the fetidness of a sink into which 
the occupants of the house emptied their refuse. 
At every whiff her heart sank. She drew from her 
pocket a bottle which she always carried about 
her, and took a swallow.r*-^ 

The staircase too had its passers-by; the respect- 

able wives of laborers ascended with bushels of coal 
or eatables. They almost stumbled over Germinie’s 
feet, and she felt glances of contempt cast upon her. 


170 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


^ Children, little girls who passed up the dark stair- 
case — girls, who brought to her mind her own'child — 
stopped and stared at her with wondering eyes; 
then they ran away, and when they reached the 
top, leaning over the balusters, they addressed to 
her rude, vulgar remarks — remarks so common 
among children of their order^ Insults hurled at 
her from those rosy lips wounded Germinie deeply■7'«^^ 
She partly rose; then, overcome, she sank back, 
and pulling her tartan over her head in order to 
hide her face, she lay there like a corpse — inert, 
insensible — like a package thrown there for every 
one to tread upon — having no feeling, awake to 
nothing but the sound of a footstep, for which she 
listened in vain. — ^ 

At length, after the lapse of several hours, she 
heard an unsteady step in the street below; then a 
tipsy voice stammered on its way upstairs: 

“Rascal — rascal of a wine-merchant! You have 
sold me wine that intoxicates!” 

It was he; almost every night there was the same 
scene. 

^^‘Ah, you are here, Germinie!” said he, recogniz- 
ing her. “This is what it is, I tell you — I am some- 
what tipsy,” putting the key in the lock. “I tell 
you, it was not my fault.” He entered, spurning 
with his foot a dove with clipped wings which was 
hopping about, and shutting the door, he made his 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


171 


usual explanation, attributing the blame to some- 
body else. 

^^^erminie, during his explanation, had lighted the 
candle, stuck in a copper candlestick. By this 
flickering light one could see the dirty paper on the 
walls, covered with caricatures cut from the “Chari- 
vari” and from other papers, and pasted on the 
wall. 

^.-■^tWell, you are a love!” said Gautruche, seeing 
Germinie place on the table a cold chicken and 
three bottles of wine. “For I must tell you, that 
all I have in my stomach is a wretched broth — that 
is all.” And he began to eat the viands set before 
him. 

Germinie tasted no food; but she drank, her 
elbows resting upon the table, her eyes fastened 
upon him with a sinister glance. 




Between those two beings there existed a terrible 


love, desperate and mournful; their caresses were 
brutalized by the fumes of wine, and seemed to seek 
the very blood beneath the skin, like the tongue of 
a wild beast; their passions engulfed them — left 
them mere shadows of their former selves. 

Germinie seemed possessed with a kind of supreme 
frenzy. In this paroxysm of excitement, the un- 
happy creature’s nerves, brain, fancy, became 
fraught with madness. At every moment the word 
“Death” escaped from her lips, as if she were in- 


172 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


yoking it, and sought to clasp it in the agonies of 
love! 

✓^^ometimes at night, suddenly sitting up on the 
/ side of the bed, she put her bare feet on the cold 
floor, and remained there, wildly gazing upon him 
who was sleeping in that silent chamber. Gradu- 
ally the silence of the hour enveloped her. Her 
power of thought became confused: all manner of 
dark objects having wings and voices seemed to 
beat against her temples. Somber tempters held 
before her eyes a red light, the light of crime; and 
there were at her back unseen hands, which im- 
pelled her toward the table on which lay the knives. 
She closed her eyes, did not stir a step; then, in 
her fear, she clung to the sheets; finally, she 
turned, and creeping into bed, fell asleep by the 
side of the man she had wished to assassinate — 
why, she did not know; for no reason but to kill! 

And thus until daybreak, in that miserably fur- 
nished room, raged and struggled those mortal pas- 
sions, while the poor, lame dove, that maimed pet 
of Venus, nestled in an old boot belonging to 
Gautrucbe, and from time to time awaking, cooed^'' 


GERM W IE LACERTEUX 


iTJi 


LIII 

< — About this time Gautruche became somewhat 
disgusted with drink. He felt the first symptoms 
of a liver complaint which for many months had 
been lurking in his heated blood. The terrible 
suffering he endured for a week had given him food 
for reflection. He was inspired with brave resolu- 
tions — with thoughts, almost sentimental, of the 
future. He told himself that he must drink more 
water if he would live to old age. As he tossed 
from side to side upon his bed, he glanced around 
his hovel, upon the four walls within which he 
spent his nights, to which he returned intoxicated, 
often without a light, and he planned another home 
for himself. 

He pictured to himself a room in which there 

was a woman — a woman who would prepare him a 
good dish of soup, would care for him when he 
was ill, would patch his clothes and keep his linens 
in order, would prevent him from running an ac- 
count at the wine-cellar — a woman, in short, who 
would keep house for him, and who, in addition to 
that, would not be stupid, would understand his 
jokes and laugh with him. 


174 


GERMINIB LACBRTEUX 


XThat woman he had found — Germinie! She 
ought to have some money — a few sous laid by 
while in her old mistress’ service — and with what he 
could earn they would live comfortably. He did 
not doubt but that she would consent; he was posi- 
tive she would accept his proposition. Moreover, 
her scruples, if she had any, would not withstand 
the hope of marriage, which he would hold out to 
her. When on Monday she entered his room, he 
began thus: 

“Say, Germinie, what do you say to this, eh.^^ 
A fine room, not like this hole — a real one, with 
a closet — at Montmartre, with two windows; Rue 
de I’Empereur, with a view that an Englishman 
would pay five thousand francs for! • In fact, 
something enlivening and gay, where one can spend 
the entire day without being bored. As for my- 
self, I tell you, I am beginning to get enough of 


this hole. And that is not all. I am tired of living 
alone. Friends are no companions. ^hey swarm 
around you like flies when you treat them, and 
then they are gone.^ Now, first of all, I am not 
going to drink any more; upon my honor, I am 
not— you shall seel I do not wish to die, you 
understand. Well, to pass from one subject to 
another, this is what I have decided upon— I make 
this proposition to Germinie: We will furnish 
rooms together; you have something saved that 


GERMiNlE LACERTEUX 


175 


will help us, I suppose. One does not always want 
to work for others. We will settle ourselves nicely, 
and some fine day will be married by the magis-* 
trate. That is not so bad, is it, eh.? But you will 
have to leave your dear old lady for your dear old 
love of a Gautruche.” 

Germinie, who had listened to Gautruche, her 
head bent forward, her chin resting in the palm of 
her hand, threw herself back, and burst into a loud 
laugh: 

x-^^a, ha, ha! You thought that, did you.? You 
propose that, eh.? You thought I would leave her — 
mademoiselle.? Indeed! did you think so.? You 
are foolish — do you know that.? Not if you had 
hundreds of thousands — not if you were laden with 
gold — do you hear.? You are joking, eh.? Mademoi- 
selle! You do not know — I have never told you — 
I would not have her die, and not be beside her to 
close her eyes with these hands! Did you really 
think I would do it.?” 

“Why, I fancied — I fancied you thought more of 
me than that— in fact, that you loved me,” said 
the painter, somewhat confused by the keen sar- 
casm of Germinie’s reply. 

“Ah, you thought that, did you.? that — I loved 


you 




Then, as if suddenly touched by remorse. 


she said: “Well, yes — I love you! I love you as 
you love me — there! just as much! That is all! 


i76 


GERM IN tE LACERfEUX 


^ I love you as something that is at hand, of which 

one makes use because it is there I am used to 
you as I am to an old dress which I wear all the 
time. That is how I love you! What is there to 
attach me to you — you or any one else! What 
have you done for me more than any other.^ Yes, 
you have taken me up; and then what.^ Is that 
enough to merit my love.^ What have you done 
to win it.? Will you tell me.? Have you ever sacri- 
ficed a glass of wine for me.? Have you ever felt 
any pity for me when I waited about in the mud, 
in the snow, at the risk of my life.? For a long 
time I have wanted to tell you this. Do you think,” 
said she, with a malicious smile, “that I was en- 
chanted with your appearance, your bald head.? 
Not much! I accepted you — I would have taken 
any one; at that time some one was necessary to 
me.” She paused!^ 

“Go on,” said Guatruche, “pitch into me — do not 
spare me while you are here.” 


■^“Eh,” resumed Germinie, “you imagined I would 
be delighted to come to you.? You said to your- 
self, ‘That stupid woman will be satisfied; I will 
only have to promise to marry her! She will leave 
her place at once; she will desert her mistress — . 
mademoiselle. Mademoiselle! who has only me. 
Ah, you do not know anything about it. If you 
did, you would not comprehend. Mademoiselle, 



I 



CERMthUE LACERTBUX 


I?*? 


who is so kind to me! CSince my mother’s death 
I have had no one but her to treat me kindly! 
With the exception of her, who has said to me 
when I was sad, ‘Are you sad’ — and when I was 
ill, ‘Are you ill’ — no one — no one but her — has 
cared for me, taken an interest in me! YoUy to 
talk of love in our relations to'ward each other! 
Ah, there is one who has loved me! mademoi- 
selle — yes, loved me! And I am dying from this, 
from having become the wretch I am; the — ” She 
uttered a word beneath her breath. “And I have 
deceived her, .robbed her of her love, allowed her 
to love me as a daughter. Me! Ah, if she should 
hear anything, I would not live long afterward; I 
would leap from the fifth story as sure as there is 
a Heaven above me! Fancy what you will, but 
you have not my heart nor my life in your keeping. 
There was a man once — I do not know if I loved 
him! endured torture for him, and said nothing^ 
But, look you, as much as I sacrificed myself for^ 
him, though I would not have breathed had he ob- 
jected, though I was mad, and allowed him to rule 
me, I should have let him go at any moment had 
mademoiselle been taken ill — had she as much as 
signed to me. Yes, for her I would have left him; 

I repeat, I would have left him!” 

“Then, since you love that old woman so much, 

Germinie Lacerteux 12 


178 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


my dear, I can only vouchsafe this advice: You 
must not leave her again. 

“Am I dismissed.^” asked Germinie, rising. 

“By my faith! it seems so to me!” 

Very well. Adieu; that suits me.” And walk- 
ing to the door, she left the room without a word. 


GERM IN IE L/ICERTEUX 


l'?9 


LIV 

After that rupture, Germinie proceeded from bad 
to worse. The miserable creature, a prey to pas- 
sion, degraded to the level of the streets, lost even 
that self-contempt which had formerly been in- 
spired by her misdeeds. She cared neither for 
youth nor beauty in man; she was blind to all 
personal attractions. What attracted her was the 
man himself, be he what he may,.^^^^^ 

^,^She walked the streets with the stealthy tread of 
a beast whose appetite is not sated. The midnight 
passer-by saw her by the lamplight, creeping along, 
cowering, her shoulders bent, hovering about in 
the shadows with that air of frenzy, of madness, 
which furnishes the mind of the student and the 
physician food for thought.-^/ 


180 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


LV 


'^One evening, when she was strolling along Rue 
du Rocher, as she passed a public-house at the 
corner of Rue de Laborde, she saw a man drinking 
at the counter, (xhat man was Jupillon. She 
stopped short, turned back, and leaned against the 
railing in front of the window, awaiting him. ^The 
light from the shop fell upon her back; as she 
stood there, motionless, her shoulders against the 
iron bars, one hand holding up her skirt, the other 
falling at her side, she looked like a shadowy 
statue of Retribution, j She was possessed with the 
determination of waiting there patiently, if neces- 
sary, forever. 


^^he saw the pedestrians, the vehicles, the street, 
vaguely, indistinctly. The extra horse used to 
help the omnibus up-hill — a white horse — was 
directly in front of her, immovable, jaded, asleep 
standing up, his head and two fore legs in the full 
glare of the light from the door; but she did not 
see him. 

It was drizzling. It was one of those days when 


C" 


GERMINIE L/1CERTEUX 


181 


the water that falls seems to turn to mud almost 
before reaching the ground. 

Germinie remained at her post half an hour, a 
pitiful sight — threatening, desperate, like a figure 
of Fate at the door of an inn. At length Jupillon 
came out. She stood before him, her arms crossed, 
money.?” she said to him. 

She looked like a woman who had no conscience, 
for whom there was no God, no law, no scaffold — 
nothing! Jupillon felt the lie he tried to utter 
stick in his throat. 

“,Your money.?” said he; “your money — it is not 
dost. But I must have time. Just now, I can tell 
you, work is not very plentiful. But in three 
months, I promise it to you. And how are you.?” 
/^‘Rascal! I will stick fast to you, though you 
want to be off! It is you who have made me what 
I am — brigand, thief, cheat! It is you!” 

Germinie cast those words in his face, thrusting 
her own close to his. She seemed to try to pro- 
voke him to blows; she called out: 

“Strike me! Why don’t you strike me for what 
I have said.?” 

^ She was beside herself; she did not know what 
she did; she seemed only to long for him to strike 
her. She thirsted for brutal treatment, for suffer- 
ing through the flesh. Blows were all she could 
think of that would put the finishing-touch to his 


182 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


treatment of her. Then she fancied the arrival of 
the police commissioner — the commissioner before 
whom she would have to confess all: her story, 
her degradation — all that she had endured for that 
man, all that he had cost her! 

Strike me!” she repeated, pressing closer to 
Jupillon, who tried to draw back as he did so, 
addressing caressing words to her, as one does to a 
beast who does not know one, and is ready to make 
a spring. 

A crowd gathered around them. 

along, old pickpocket; don’t annoy the 
gentleman,” said a police officer, bringing Ger- 
minie to her senses by seizing her roughly by the 
arm. Under the brutal grasp of that rude hand, 
Germinie’s knees knocked together; she thought 
she should faint. Then, in affright, she fled down 
the street. 


GERM INI E LACERTEUX 


183 


LVI 


has mad, inexplicable capricesj That 
accursed love which Germinie thought destroyed 


by the wounds inflicted by Jupillon, revived. She 
was startled when she made the discovery. The 
sight alone of that man, that short meeting, the 
sound of his voice, the inhalation of the air he 
breathed, had sufficed to cause a revulsion of feel- 
ing on her part, and to render the miserable past 
forgotten. 

Notwithstanding all, she had never been success- 
ful in entirely rooting her affection for Jupillon 
from her heart. had been her first lov^ she 

clung to him in spite of herself.'} Between her and 
him were all the bonds which knit a woman in- 
solubly to a man — self-sacrifice, suffering, abase- 
ment. (she was his, for he had violated her honor, 
trodden upon her illusions, inflicted martyrdom 
upon her. } She was his, his eternally, by virtue of 
her trials.'^ And that scene, which should have 
made her dread another meeting, had only served 
to rekindle a mad desire to be near, to see him! 
All her passion was renewed Thoughts of Jupil- 



184 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


Ion helped to redeem her; she ceased her vaga- 
bondish life; she wanted no lover, for to have none 
was her sole hope of winning him back. 

^^^--She began to watch for him — to study his hours for 
going out, the streets through which he passed, the 
places he frequented. She followed him to Batig- 
nolles, to his new lodgings, walking behind him, 
contented to set her feet where he had set his, to 
see him; that was all, however. She dared not 
address him; she remained at a distance, like a dog 
that is perfectly satisfied if he be not repulsed by 
a kick. Thus for weeks she became that man’s 
shadow — an humble, timid shadow, dreading dis- 
covery. 

^^/^Sometimes she awaited him near the door of the 
house he entered, followed him when he left it, 
accompanied him home, always at a distance, with- 
out a word, with the air of a beggar who asks for 
crusts, and is thankful to be accorded permission 
to collect them. Then, through the shutters of 
the room on the ground floor in which he lived, 
she watched to see if he were alone, if any one was 
there. When a woman leaned upon his arm, 
although she inflicted cruel suffering on herself, she 
was determined to follow them; she went wherever 
the couple went. She entered public gardens and 
ball-rooms behind them. She walked in their 
smiles, in their v/ords, agonized by the sight of his 
attentions, racked by jealousy, 



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GERMlhJIE LACERTEUX 


185 


LVII 

For several days after the night spent in the rain 
Germinie’s face was the color of marble; her eyes 
glowed. She said nothing, however; made no 
complaint, and performed her duties as usual. 

“Come, let me look at you a moment,” said 
mademoiselle, drawing her toward the light; “what 
does this mean — this corpse-like face.^ Tell me, are 
you ill.? have you a fever.?” 

She seized her maid’s wrist; then, pushing her 
away, she said: 

“You have a high fever, and you are keeping it 
to yourself!” 

“No, mademoiselle,” Germinie stammered; “I 
think I have a severe cold. I fell asleep the other 
evening, and left my window open.” 

“Ah, indeed,” replied mademoiselle. “Oh! wait 
a minute.” And putting on her spectacles, she 
rolled her arm-chair to a small table near the fire- 
place, and wrote several lines in a bold hand. 

“Now,” said she, as she folded the letter, “you 
will be kind enough to hand that to your friend 
Adele to give to the porter, and then to bed!” 

But Germinie would not go to bed; she was not 


186 


GERMJNIE L/iCERTEUX 


tired. She sat up all day. Besides, she persisted, 
the worst of her illness was over; she was already 
better. 

The physician summoned by mademoiselle came 
that evening. He examined Germinie, and pre- 
scribed for her. The difficulty was with her lungs, 
and such that he could not tell positively what it 
might develop into. They must await the effect of 
the remedies. He came again in the course of a 
few days, ordered Germinie to bed, and examined 
her by means of a stethoscope. 

^“It is wonderful,” said he to mademoiselle when 
he came down-stairs; “she has had the pleurisy, and 
has not kept her bed at all. She must be made of 
iron. Oh, the strength of these women! How 
old is she?” 

“Forty-one.” 

“Forty-one? It is impossible! Are you sure? 
She looks as if she were fifty. 

“What can you expect? She is always out of 
health, always ill, always in trouble — with a dispo- 
sition that causes her to worry.” 

“Forty-one! It is astonishing!” repeated the 
physician. He resumed, after a moment’s reflec- 
tion: “Has there ever been, to your knowledge, any 
lung disease in her family? Are her parents dead?” 

“She lost a sister with pleurisy. But she was 
older; she was forty-eight, I believe.” 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


187 


The doctor looked grave. 

“She will get better,” he said in a reassuring 
tone. “But it is highly essential that she should 
rest. Let her come to me once a week, and be 
careful that you select a fine day — a sunny day.” 


188 


GERM IN IB LACERTEUX 


LVIII 

^ Mademoiselle talked, besought, commanded, 
scolded — in vain she could not persuade nor force 
Germinie to discontinue her duties even for a few 
days. She would not listen to the proposition of 
having some one to help her do the work; she de- 
clared to mademoiselle that it could not be; that 
she could never reconcile herself to the thought of 
another woman approaching, serving, caring for 
her; that the very idea of such a thing made her 
feverish; that she was not dead yet, and that as* 
long as she could put one foot before the other,, 
she begged her mistress to let her wait upon her. 
In uttering those words, she took such a tender 
tone, her eyes looked so supplicating, her manner 
was so humble, yet so passionate, that mademoi- 
selle did not have the courage to oppose her. ^She 
considered and called her a “blockhead,” who 
thought, like all country people, that she would 
die if she remained in bed a few days.’^ 

Keeping up under the doctor’s treatment, Ger- 
minie continued to make mademoiselle’s bed, 
though the latter assisted her in turning the mat- 
tress. She, too, continued to prepare the food, 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


189 


which was for her the hardest task. When she 
cooked the breakfasts and dinners she almost gave 
out, for her kitchen was one of those miserable, 
^mall kitchens, so common in Paris, which are the 
cause of much of the consumption among women. 
The embers which she lighted, and from which 
arose slowly a cloud of smoke, made her feel 
faint. Then the charcoal fumes enveloped her in 
their sickening odor. She was stifled; she felt the 
blood rush to her face; her head whirled as she 
staggered to the window to inhale a breath of fresh 
air. 

She had a horror of being confined to her bed — 
of seeing another care for mademoiselle. She 
feared the information that might be brought by 
a new servant. She must remain near her mis- 
tress, and prevent any one else from stepping in. 

She too must show herself, that her neighbors 
might see her, that her creditors should not think 
she was dying. She must appear to be as strong 
and gay as ever, in order to inspire those about her 
with confidence by the promise of a speedy recovery. 
She must keep up, in order to reassure those to 
whom she was in debt, to prevent stories of her 
embarrassment from mounting the stairs and reach- 
ing mademoiselle’s ears. fin this she was almost 
heroic^ As she passed those shops the proprietors 
of which were watching her, she straightened her 


190 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


feeble frame, quickened her lagging step, ^nd 
rubbed her cheeks with a coarse napkin before 
descending the stairs, to call up the color in place 
of that death-like pallor which overspread her face. 

All winter she wrestled with her malady, not- 
withstanding the distressing cough which broke 
her rest — notwithstanding the fact that her stomach 
rejected all nourishment. 

Each time that he came the physician told 
mademoiselle that he did not find any of her maid’s 
organs affected seriously; the lungs, it was true, were 
somewhat weak, but that would be overcome. 
•^N^Yet her body is worn out — worn out,” he re- 
peated with a grave accent, with an air almost of 
embarrassment, which struck mademoiselle. 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


1»1 


LIX 


^ — ^In August the doctor could find nothing more to 
prescribe but the country. In spite of the inconven- 
ience it caused her to travel, to change her dwelling- 
place, her habits — notwithstanding her domesticity 
and the pang it cost her to leave her home — mad- 
emoiselle decided to take Germinie to the country. 

She wrote to a daughter of one of her former 
protegees, who lived with her family on a small 
but pretty estate in the village of La Brie, and who 
for many years had wanted her old friend to visit 
her. She asked her hospitality for a month or six 
weeks for herself and her maid, who was in delicate 
health. 

'They set out. Germinie was delighted. Upon 
Vr arrival she felt better. But the spring of that 
year was rainy; there were sudden changes and 
high winds. Germinie caught cold, and mademoi- 
selle soon heard that frightful cough recommence, 
which had been so insupportable and so distressing 
to her in Paris. [Jet from those nights of suffering 
Germinie arose with an energy, an activity, which 
surprised and for the moment reassured mademoi- 


192 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


selle. She was up as early as the rest of the 
family. One morning, at five o’clock, she went 
with one of the servants to a place three leagues 
distant, to obtain fish; another time she went to 
a ball with the other maids, and did not return 
until day-break. She also helped the servants 
with their work; seated in a chair in a corner of 
the kitchen, she was always busy. 

Mademoiselle had to compel her to go into the 
garden; Germinie would seat herself on a green 
bench, forgetting everything in breathing the light 
and warmth in a sort of passionate aspiration and 
feverish joy. Although she was fatigued by even- 
ing, nothing would induce her to retire before her 
mistress — she must be with her to assist her in 
making her toilet for the night. Seated near by, 
she rose from time to time to render what assist- 
ance she could — perhaps to help take off a skirt; 
then she resumed her seat, collected her strength, 
rose again and tried to perform some other office. 
It finally became necessary for mademoiselle to 
oblige her forcibly to remain seated. 

At such times she would repeat the same tire- 
some stories about the servants in the house. 
'^“Do you know, mademoiselle, you have no idea 
what eyes they make when they think no one sees 
them — the cook and the man. They behave, how- 
ever, when I am there; but the other day I sur- 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


193 


prised them in the bake-house; they were kissing — 
just fancy that! It is fortunate that madame sus- 
pects nothing. 

There you are again, with your tales! Great 
.iieavens,” said the old lady, “what does it concern 
you if they kiss each other or not.? They are kind 
to you, are they not.? That is all that is necessary.’’ 

“Ah, very kind, mademoiselle; I have nothing 
to complain of. Marie got up one night to give 
me a drink, and when there is any dessert left, he 
always saves it for me. Oh, he is very kind to 
me! Marie does not like it very well that he is so 
attentive to me; you understand, mademoiselle.?” 

“Come, go to bed and stop your nonsense,” 
brusquely replied her mistress, out of patience at 
seeing a person as ill as her maid then was, inter- 
fering with the love of another, 


Germinie Lacerteux 1$ 


194 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


LX 

On their return from the country, the doctor, after 
making an examination of Germinie, said to mad- 
emoiselle: 

“This has been very rapid — very rapid. The left 
lung is entirely gone, the right affected; I fear 
she is a doomed woman. She may live six weeks — 
two months at the most.” 

^‘Ah, sir,” said Mile, de Varandeuil, “all that I 
love pass away before me! I shall go last!” 

“Have you thought of softie place to which to 
send her.?” asked the doctor after a pause. “You 
cannot keep her here. It would distress you to see 
her sufferings.” 

---“No, sir, no; I have thought of no place! Must 
I send her away.? Sir, she is not a maid, not a serv- 
ant to me — she is like one of my family. What! 
would you have me say to her, ‘Begone, at once!’ 
Ah, this is the first time I ever longed for wealth, 
and felt the inconvenience of having rooms such as 
I now have. To tell her that would be out of the 
question! And where would she go.? To Dubois.? 
Ah, yes — to Dubois! She has been there to see 


GERM IS IE LACERTEUX 


195 


the maid I had before her, who died there. As 
well kill her.” 

“The hospital, then.!*” 

“No, not there; I do not want her to pass away 
in such a place!” 

iiBut, mademoiselle, she would be a hundred 
limes better off than here. I will procure her ad- 
mission to Lariboisiere, under the care of a doctor 
who is a friend of mine. I will recommend her to 
the house-surgeon. She will have a good nurse in 
the ward to which I will have her taken. In case 
of need, she could have a room to herself. But I 
am sure she would prefer to be in the common 
hall. It must be done, mademoiselle; it is abso- 
lutely necessary. She could not rest in that room 
upstairs. You know what those servants’ rooms 
are — they are cold and draughty, they have no fire- 
places; she has surprising courage, wonderful nerv- 
ous vitality; but notwithstanding that, she will be 
confined to her bed in the course of several days — 
she will rise from that bed no more. Come, be 
reasonable, mademoiselle; let me speak to her, will 
you.!*” 

“No, not yet. I must compose myself, and then ^ 
look about me. I do not think she will die as 
quickly as that; we shall have time. Later on, 
we will see — yes, later on.” 

“Pardon me, mademoiselle, but permit me to 


196 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


suggest that in caring for her, you may make your- 
self ill.” 


Oh, I!” And Mile, de Varandeuil, as she 
uttered those words, accompanied them by a gest- 
ure which expressed more plainly than any words 
could have done, the small value she set upon her 
life. 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


197 


LXI 


with the feeling of uneasiness which 
the illness of her maid caused mademoiselle, was 
a singular sensation, a certain fear of the new being, 
strange and mysterious, which disease had called 
forth from the depths of Germinie’s soul. Mad- 
emoiselle felt uncomfortable when gazing upon that 
face veiled in an implacable sternness, lighted only 
occasionally by a faint smile. The old lady had 
seen death approach a great many times; she could 
recall the faces of the dying, but none within her 
recollection had assumed so somber a character — an 
expression, as it were, so locked within itself; it 
was incomprehensible. ^Germinie was as immobile 
as bronzed) Mademoiselle puzzled her brain as to 
what the woman was secreting; was it a horror of 
death, or a secret fraught with remorse.^ No ex- 
ternal influences seemed to touch her. She became 
indifferent to all things — no longer desired to be 
relieved or cured. ^She made no complaints, 
took no interest in what was going on around her.^ 
Her thirst for affection even had left her. She 
seemed to be petrifying; she would gaze fixedly 


198 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


into space, and utter no sound for hours. When 
mademoiselle returned from the house of a friend 
with whom she had dined, she found Germinie in 
darkness, without a light, seated in an easy-chair, 
her feet upon another, her head bent upon her 
breast, so deeply absorbed in her thoughts that she 
had not even heard the door open and shut. Qupon 
advancing into the room, mademoiselle felt as if 
she were disturbing a tete-a-tete between disease 
and darkness, in which Germinie was already court- 
ing the obscurity of the tomb and the shadow of 


death! 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


199 


LXII 

^uring the month of October, Germinie refused 
to remain in bed. Daily, however, she grew more 
feeble; scarcely was she able to mount the stairs 
leading to her room. One day she grew dizzy and 
fell; the servants picked her up and carried her to 
her room. But she did not stay there; the follow- 
ing morning she came down as usual. She pre- 
pared mademoiselle’s breakfast; she made a pre- 
tense of working; she tottered around the room, 
supporting herself on the furniture. 

^Mademoiselle, observing this, made her lie down 
on her own bed. Germinie lay there half an hour 
— an hour — sleepless, uttering no sound — her eyes 
open, vague and staring. Finally, one morning, she 
did not come down-stairs. Mademoiselle climbed 
to the servants’ quarters, and stopped at Germinie’s 
door. No. 21. Germinie begged her pardon for 
causing her so much trouble; it had been impos- 
sible for her to rise; she had severe pains in her 
stomach, which was swollen. She asked mademoi- 
selle to be seated, and removed a candlestick from 
the only chair in the room. Mademoiselle sat 


200 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


down, and for several moments looked around 
that miserable room — one of those in which the 
doctor is forced to lay his hat on the bed — in which 
there is barely space to dtei^ It was a mansard, 
several feet square, without a fire-place. Old 
trunks, carpet-bags, a bath-tub, and the small iron 
bed which Germinie had bought for her niece, 
were piled together in a corner. A bed, a chair, a 
small jug, and a broken basin, comprised the 
furniture. Over the bed, in a rosewood frame, 
hung a daguerreotype of a man^ 

The doctor came that day. 

|“Ah, peritonitis!” said he, when mademoiselle 
had informed him of Germinie’s condition. He 
went upstairs to see the patient. 

-“I fear,” said he on coming down, “that there is 
an abscess in her stomach. It is serious, very 
serious. It must be impressed upon her that she 
is not to move about much in her bed, and that she 
must turn cautiously. She might die suddenly, in 
the greatest agony. I proposed that she go to Lari- 
boisiere; she consented at once — she made no ob- 
jection; she has no horror of it. But I do not 
know how she will stand the removal. Still, she 
has so much energy — such a strong will; I have 
never seen her equal. To-morrow morning you 
shall receive the order for admission. ”-V 

When mademoiselle entered Germinie’s chamber, 


GERM IN IE L/ICERTEUX 


201 


to her surprise she found her smiling, delighted at 
the thought of going away. 

“You see, mademoiselle, it is only a matter of 
about six weeks,” she said to her mistress. 


202 


GERM 11^ IE LACERTEUX 


LXIIII 

/^At two o’clock the following day the doctor 
brought the order. His patient was ready to go. 
Mademoiselle proposed having her carried on a 
litter brought from the hospital. 

“Oh, no!” said Germinie hastily; “folks would 
think I was dying!” 

She remembered her debts; she wanted to be 
seen by her creditors in the neighborhood, alive and 
erect to the last! 

She rose from her bed. Mile, de Varandeuil 
assisted her in putting on her skirts and dress; then 
Germinie went down-stairs and seated herself in 
an arm-chair in the dining-room, near a window. 
In the meantime the char-woman put up a pack- 
age containing some changes of linen, a glass, a 
cup, and a pewter plate that she wanted to take 
with her. When the woman had finished, she left 
the room, and Germinie, fixing her eyes upon the 
door through which she had passed, said to mad- 
emoiselle: 

“At least I leave you some one honest.” 

Then she rose, and supported, almost carried by 


. GERM IN IE L/fCERTEUX 


203 


Mile, de Varandeuil, she descended the five flights; 
at each landing she stopped to rest. In the vesti- 
bule she saw the porter, who brought her a chair. 
She sank into it. The man, with a smile, asked if 
she would be back again in six weeks. She hur-^^ 
riedly replied, “Yes, yes !” 

She entered the cab; her mistress seated herself 
beside her. She watched the houses as they passed 
them, but did not speak; the cab was uncomfort- 
able, and jolted her as it rumbled along. 

Arrived at the hospital gate, she refused to allow 
them to carry her. 

“Can you walk so far.^” asked the lodge-keeper, 
pointing to the house, about twenty feet distant. 

She made a sign in the affirmative, and walked 
on. At length they reached the large hall — lofty, 
cold, neat, but terrible. Mile, de Varandeuil found 
Germinie a seat near a window, which was opened 
by an employe, who asked the mistress her maid’s 
name and age, which he put down upon a docu- 
ment, at the head of which was a religious symbol. 
That done. Mile, de Varandeuil turned and em- 
braced her; a boy took her by the arm — she passed 
along the hall and disappeared. Mademoiselle 
turned and rushed toward her cab; throwing herself 
upon the cushions, she gave vent to the anguish 
pent up within her bosom, in sobs and tears. The 
coachman on his box was surprised to hear such 
violent grief, 


204 


GERM IN IE LACERTEVX 


LXIV 


Visiting day — Thursday — arrived. Mile, de Var- 
andeuil set out at half-past twelve for the hospital; 
she wished to be at Germinie’s side as soon as the 
doors opened. Passing through the same streets 
they had passed through four days before, she re- 
called her terrible trip. It almost seemed to her 
that in the carriage in which she was seated was a 
suffering form, and she involuntarily shrank into a 
corner, as if to make room for Germinie. 

How would she find her.^ Would she be there.^ 
What if her bed should be empty! The cab rolled 
along a narrow street, in which stood wagons loaded 
with oranges, while women seated on the sidewalks 
sold biscuits and cakes from baskets. There was 
something mournful about those fruit and cake 
stalls, from which horny hands in passing bought 
dainty morsels to carry to the dying?) Children car- 
ried them gravely, tenderly, almost piously, as if 


they understood^ 

/^The cab drew up at the court-yard gate. It 
lacked five minutes of the hour; at the gate stood 
a file of women in working-dress — sad, gloomy, and 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


205 


silent. Mile, de Varandeuil took her place in the 
line, advanced with the others — entered. She asked 
for the Saint Josephine ward; she was directed 
thither, and found the bed. No. 14, as they had told 
her, one of the last to the right. Had she not 
been directed, she would have been drawn toward 
the place at the end of the room by Germinie’s 
smile — that smile of the hospital patient, which says 
to the unexpected visitor on entering, “I am here!” 

She bent over the bed; Germinie tried to push 
her away with a gesture of humility and the respect 
of a servant; but Mile, de Varandeuil kissed her. 

“Ah,” said Germinie to her, “the time seemed so 
long yesterday. I imagined it was Thursday, and 
I longed to see you.” 

“My poor girl! How are you.^” 

--\^‘Oh, very comfortable just now. The swelling 
is reduced. I have three weeks to remain here, you 
see, mademoiselle. They said I would have a 
month — six weeks — but I understand myself best; 
and then I am very well; I sleep now at night. 
I am thirsty though, but they will give me wine 
and water.” 

“What do they give you to drink.?” 

“There it is — will you pour me some out, mad- 
emoiselle; their pewter jugs are so heavy.” And 
raising herself by means of a small baton suspended 
over her bed, and extending her emaciated arm 


20C 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


toward the glass which Mile, de Varandeuil held 
toward her, she feverishly drained the contents. 

“There!” said she, when her thirst had been 
slaked, placing her arms outside the coverlet upon 
the bed. Then she resumed: “My poor mademoi- 
selle, does my illness inconvenience you.? I sup- 
pose the dirt at home is worse than ever.?” 

“Do not worry about that.” 

A pause ensued. A faint smile played about Ger- 
minie’s mouth as she said to mademoiselle: 

“I have been pretending — I have said I felt well.” 
Then, bending forward, she whispered: “There are 
histories here! I have a queer neighbor over 
there” — she motioned toward the sick woman to 
whom her back was turned. “There is a man who 
comes here to see her. He talked to her yester- 
day for an hour. I overheard that they had a 
child; she has left her husband. He was like a 
madman — that fellow — when talking to her.” 

Germinie grew quite animated as she recalled the 
scene that had taken place the previous day — she, 
so near death, to have listened to the love beside 
her! 

Suddenly her face changed. A woman approached 
her bed; she seemed embarrassed on seeing Mile- 
de Varandeuil. She bent over Germinie and kissed 
her, and as another woman advanced, she hastily 
took leave of her; the new-comer did the same — 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


307 


kissed Germinie, and soon left her. This woman 
was followed by a man, while after him came a 
woman. All bent over the invalid to kiss her, and 
each time Mile, de Varandeuil heard indistinctly 
some murmured words from those who embraced, 
and a hurried reply from her who was embraced. 

“Well,” said she to Germinie, “I see they take 
good care of you!” 

“Ah, yes,” replied Germinie in a peculiar tone; 
“they care for me!” 

But she did not appear as cheerful as she had 
been on mademoiselle’s arrival. Her face was set; 
it was cold and impenetrable. Her features were 
overspread by a veil of infinite and mute suffering. 
There was no longer that tender, caressing ex- 
pression in her eyes; in its place was a fixed stare. 
Those visitors she had just received were the grocer, 
the green-grocer, the laundress, and the woman 
who had succeeded Mme. Jupillon. Those kisses 
were given by her creditors simply as a means of 
conveying to her in an undertone a reminder of 
her debts to them. 


208 


GERM IE LACERTEUX 



X LXV 


Saturday morning mademoiselle was about to 


prepare a small basket filled with dainties to carry 
to Germinie the following day, when she heard 
the sound of voices in the hall — the voices of the 
char-woman and the porter. 

Almost immediately the door opened, and the 
latter entered the room. 

y^“Sad news, mademoiselle,” said he. And he 
held toward her a letter. It bore the stamp of the 
hospital of Lariboisiere. 

^Germinie had died that morning at seven o’clock. 
Mademoiselle stared at the paper. Dead! dead! 
She could not believe it! Dead! She should see 
her no more! There was no longer a Germinie in 
the world! Dead! she was dead! And she should 
not hear her at work in the kitchen any more! She 
would not open the door for her again; she would 
not enter her room again in the morning — some one 
else would take her place; 

“Germinie!” she cried at length; then, recalling 
what had happened, she exclaimed: 

“Machine! thing^ — what is your name.?” she said 











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209 


harshly to the char-woman — “my dress, that I may 
go out.” 

That sudden death was such a shock to her that 
she could scarcely grasp the truth contained in that 
letter. 

— Was Germinie really dead.? Mademoiselle asked 
herself that question with the feeling of doubt in- 
spired in people who have lost dear ones at a dis- 
tance, and not having seen them die, cannot realize 
that they are dead. 

/—Had she not seen her alive the last time.? How 
had it happened.? Mademoiselle was anxious as to 
her last hours — was anxious to hear about what she 
had not seen; she must find out if Germinie had 
said anything before her death — if she had expressed 
any wish, any desire. 

Arrived at Lariboisiere, she passed the porter, 
walked through the corridors in which the con- 
valescents were taking some exercise, and knocked 
at a door veiled with white curtains, at the end of 
the building. 

^It was opened. She entered a parlor, lighted by 
^two windows, in which a Holy Virgin in plaster was 
placed upon a pedestal between two views of Vesu- 
vius. Behind her, through an open door, came the 
sound of voices — of youthful voices and fresh 
laughter. Mademoiselle asked to speak with the 
matron of the Saint Josephine ward. She entered 

Germinie Lacerteux 14 


210 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


the room — a small woman, slightly deformed, with 
a plain but kindly face, Germinie had died in her 
arms. 

y^She suffered very little,” said the nurse to 
mademoiselle. “She was cheerful, hopeful! In 
the morning, toward seven o’clock, when her bed 
was being made, suddenly, without knowing that 
she was dying, she was taken with a hemorrhage, 
in which she passed away.” The woman added 
that she had said nothing, expressed no last wishes. 

Mademoiselle rose, relieved. Germinie, then, 
had been spared the suffering she had pictured to 
herself. Mademoiselle was grateful for the sud- 
den death. As she was leaving the room a boy 
approached her, saying: 

“Would you like to see the body.?” 

The body! The word startled mademoiselle. 



/ Without awaiting a reply, the boy preceded her to 
a large yellow door upon which was inscribed, 
“Amphitheater.” He knocked; a man in his shirt- 
sleeves partly opened the door and bade him wait 
a moment. Mademoiselle waited too. She was 
frightened; her thoughts were on the other side of 
that dreadful door. Confused, her terror awak- 
ened, she trembled at the idea of entering — of see- 
ing in the midst of others that disfigured face which 
perchance she could not recognize. Yet she could 
not tear herself away. She told herself she should 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


211 


never see her more! The man opened the door. 
Mademoiselle saw nothing but a bier, the lid of 
which disclosed Germinie’s face, her eyes wide and 
staring, her hair standing, as it were, on end.,^v^ 


212 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


LXVI 

/" Overcome by her emotions at that last sight of 
Germinie, Mile, de Varandeuil, upon returning 
home, went to bed, after giving the porter money 
to pay the expenses of the funeral and a lot. As 
she lay in bed, what she had seen rose before her. 
She had constantly before her that face within .the 
bier — Germinie ’s face, so changed! with eyes that 
seemed to have receded; with distorted mouth, 
from which the last breath had passed; with hair 
standing on end! Mademoiselle was haunted by 
the sight. She involuntarily recalled all the super- 
stition that she had heard, when a child, relative to 
corpses. She had heard, she remembered, that 
corpses which had such hair took with them to 
the grave a crime. At times she saw Gerininie’s 
head with the hair of guilt, straight with fear and 
horror, before the justice of Heaven, like the hair 
of the condemned at the scaffold. 

Sunday mademoiselle was too ill to leave her 
bed. Monday she tried to rise to attend the funeral; 
but she was so weak that she was compelled to 
return to her couch. 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


213 


LXVII 

“Well, is it over?” asked mademoiselle when, 
at eleven o’clock, the porter entered, having re- 
turned from the cemetery with a subdued expres- 
sion upon his face. 

— llYes, mademoiselle; thank God, the poor girl 
will suffer no more!” 

“Stop! I am not in a fit condition to-day. 
Put the receipts and the remainder of the money 
on my table; we will count it some other time.” 

The porter did not stir. In the course of a few 
minutes he said: 

“A funeral is expensive; there is first — ” 

“Who told you to count the cost?” asked mad- 
emoiselle proudly. 

The porter continued, not heeding the interrup- 
tion: 

^^‘And then a lot, such as you spoke to me about, 
is not to be had. You are very kind-hearted, 
mademoiselle, but you are not very rich; we knew 
that, and said: ‘It will be hard for mademoiselle to 
pay, and, we know her — she will pay; now, we 
might spare her that. The girl will be just as well 


214 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


off — and what would give her more pleasure, did 
she know about it — to feel that she had wronged 
no one, the good soul!’ ” 

“Pay! — what?” demanded Mile, de Varandeuil, 
impatient at the porter’s circumlocution. 

“Oh, it is nothing,” replied the porter; “she was 
very fond of you, all the same — and then, when 
she was very ill, would not have been the time. 
But you need not inconvenience yourself — there 
is no hurry; it is the money she has owed for some 
time — that is it. See!” 

And he drew from his pocket a stamped docu- 
ment. 

“I did not require a bond, but she — ” 

Mile, de Varandeuil seized the paper and glanced 
at the end of it. It was an acknowledgment, 
signed by Germinie, of the receipt of three hundred 
francs, payable in monthly installments. 

“It is a mere trifle, you see,” said the porter. 

Mademoiselle took off her spectacles. “I will 
pay it,” said she. 

The porter bowed, but did not leave the room. 

She glanced at him. “That is all, I hope,” she 
said shortly. 

The porter stared fixedly at the floor. “That is 
all, if you wish.” 

Mademoiselle was as terrified as she had been 


GERM mi E LACERTEUX 


215 


when she passed into that room where lay all that 
remained of her maid. 

“But how does she owe all this.!*” she exclaimed. 
“I paid her liberal wages; I almost clothed her. 
For what did her money go, eh.!*” 

“Ah, that is it, mademoiselle; I do not care to 
tell you, but as well to-day as to-morrow. And, 
too, it is better for you to be prepared; if one 
knows, one can arrange. There is an account at 
the poulterer’s; the poor girl owes a little every- 
where. The last time, the laundress let her have 
money — quite a good deal — I do not know how 
much. It seems she owes the grocer, too, an old 
note, that has increased with years; he will bring 
you his reckoning.” 

“How much is it.?” 

“In the two hundred and fifties.” 

All those revelations falling upon Mile, de Var- 
andeuil, blow upon blow, shocked her greatly. So 
far she uttered no word of reproach against the girl, 
the veil of whose secret life was being torn away 
piece by piece. 

“Yes, in the two hundred and fifties. There was 
a great deal of wine.” 

“I have always had it in the cellar.” 

“This was at the shop — at Mme. Jupillon’s suc- 
cessor’s; oh, not much — seventy-five francs — for 
bitters and brandy.” 


316 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


“She drank?” exclaimed mademoiselle, who at 
those words guessed all. 

The porter did not seem to hear her. 

^‘Ah, you see, it was her ruin to know those 
Jupillons; that young man — it was not for herself 
that she contracted those debts. And then the 
trouble — she began to drink. She expected to 
marry him, I must tell you; she furnished him a 
suite of rooms — she ruined herself. I often told 


her not to drink so much. When she came home at 
six o’clock in the morning, I did not tell you; I 
thought: ‘She is like her child. ’ Ah!” continued the 
porter, “it is fortunate that she is dead. She has 
cost you enough, mademoiselle, and you can let 
her remain where she is, with all the rest.” 

“Ah, that was it! She stole from me — she in- 
curred debts — she has done well to die! And I 
must pay! My child — no! no child of mine! A 
degraded wretch! she may rot where she is. You 
have done right. Monsieur Henri. To steal! — she 
stole from me! I gave her all my keys — I never 
counted my money. My God! I had confidence 
in her! Very well, I will pay — it is not for her 
sake, but mine. And I gave my best pair of sheets 
to wrap her in. Ah! if I had known, I would 
have given you an old dust-sheet, mademoiselle!” 

The old lady continued to rail until the torrent 
of invectives she hurled at the dead Germinie 
almost choked her into silence. - — ^ 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


217 


LXVIII 


As a result of that scene, Mile, de Varandeuil 



/ was confined to her bed a week, her heart filled 
with indignation which overflowed from her lips, 
drawing from her gross epithets which she hurled 
at the tarnished memory of her maid. 

Night and day, even in her dreams, she gave 
utterance to those maledictions. 

Was it possible.^ Germinie — herGerniinie! She 
would never return! Debts! — her child! — all man- 
ner of disgrace! The wretch! she abhorred, she de- 
tested her! Had she lived, she would have denoun- 
ced her to the police! A girl who had served her 
twenty years, intemperate! — she had descended as 
low as that! The horror one conceives after a bad 
dream possessed mademoiselle. How she had de- 
ceived her! How she had pretended to love her, 
the miserable woman! And to make her appear 
more ungrateful and debauched, mademoiselle re- 
called her affection, her care, her jealousy, her air 
of adoration. She saw her bending over her when 
she was ill — she thought of her caresses! All that 
was false! — her devotion a sham! her kisses, her 


318 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


love, a lie! Mademoiselle assured herself of that — 
repeated it, persuaded herself that it was so. And 
then from those feelings of bitterness there arose 
within her the first sensation of pity, of mercy. 
She remembered facts which she had not paid much 
attention to when Germinie was alive, but which 
the tomb recalled and which death exposed. She 
had a vague recollection of certain peculiarities in 
the girl — of feverish effusions, of troubled embraces, 
of times when she seemed about to make a con- 
fession — when upon her lips a secret seemed to 
tremble. She recalled Germinie’s gestures, her 
attitudes, her distressed appearance. Beneath 
those she now perceived remorse, suppressed suffer- 
ing, a passion for which she could only ask pardon 
by silence. Then, again, ,she took herself to task 
for having been so lenient in her thoughts. Her 
rigid sense of right and wrong — those feelings which 
a respectable woman would condemn in a daughter, 
and which to a person as pure as Mile, de Varan- 
deuil would be execrable — revolted against a pardon. 
Within her, a sense of justice cried: “Never! 
Never!” And she cast aside Germinie’s infamous 
image; she even calumniated it, overwhelmed it 
with reproach. (At the same moment, during her 
blackest thoughts a vision appeared to her, ad- 
vanced toward her in the form of her dead maid. 
She saw that face which she had seen in the amphi- 


GERM IN IE LACERTEUX 


219 


theater, which, in proportion as it rose before her, 
rose with less repugnance; the face seemed to bear 
traces of suffering only, the suffering of expiation./^ 

' — \Insensibly indulgence crept into mademoiselle’s 
heart — excuses which surprised herself. She ques- 
tioned if the poor girl had been as guilty as others; 
if her life, circumstances, had not made of her the 
creature she became — a creature of passion and of 
woe. . Suddenly she stopped — she was about to 
pardon her. One morning she leaped from her bed.-y^ 

“Here! you — you other one!” cried she to her 
housekeeper — “what is your name.? I always for- 
get it. Quick! my clothes! I am going out.” 

“Why, mademoiselle — the roofs — look out; they 
are white.” 

“Yes, it snows — that is all.” 

Ten minutes later, Mile, de Varandeuil said to 
the cabman, for whom she had sent: 

“To the cemetery — Montmartrelli — / 


320 


GERM INI E LACERTEUX 


. J 

/ LXIX 

Far in the distance extended a wall; a line of 
snow lay upon its coping To the left, in a corner, 
three trees, divested of foliage, stretched their bare 
branches toward the sky. Beyond this wall was 
a large piece of ground on which were ranged two 
rows of crosses, crowded together, some broken 
off, overthrown. All of them were hung with 
wreaths of immortelles, of white and gold paper, 
of white and black. All the crosses had names 
upon them; but there were names which were not 
even cut on a piece of wood; a branch broken from 
a tree stuck in the ground, with an envelope at- 
tached to it with the name upon it, was a tomb very 
commonly seen. Across a trench there was a third 
row of crosses. Everything was covered with snow; 
an old priest in a black stole was trying to warm 
himself by stamping on the ground. This was the 
common burying-ground; that spot, those crosses, 
that priest,^seemed to say, (J^ere sleep the dead 
of the people!’^ 

/^^Oh, Paris! you are the center of civilization; 
/ you are a great city, charitable and fraternal. ] The 


GERMINIE LACERTEUX 


231 


pauper is your citizen, as well as the rich mari?^ 
^our church preaches Jesus Christ^) your laws 
equality^ your papers progression^ and this is where 
you throw those who die serving you- those who 
work to create your luxury ;^those who perish from 
the evil of your industries;' those who have spent 
their lives in toiling for youV^ in contributing to 
your welfare^ your pleasures,) your splendor^ those 
who form the crowds upon your streets-^the peo- 
ple of your grandeur. ) 

^ach of your cemeteries has a shameful corner, 
hidden behind a wall, where you hasten to bury 
them.) They say that your charity ceases with 
their last breath; )that your only free gift is the bed 
upon which they suffer, and that after the hospital — 
so large, so fine — you have no more room for those 
people!) You bury them, you crowd them, you 
confuse them in death, in a place from which in the 
spring the breezes carry hence an unhealthy miasma)\ 
^Mademoiselle arrived at this place. Directed by 
a keeper, she passed between the first row of crosses 
and the newly dug trench; and walking over the 
fallen wreaths, she bent over each cross, reading 
the dates, seeking out the name with her weak 
eyes. She reached the cross with the date of the 
8th of November upon it — that was the day before 
the death of her maid — Germinie must lie near by. 
There were five crosses for the 9th of November — 


222 


GERM INI E LACERTEUX 


five crosses crowded together. Germinie was not 
amongst those. Mile, de Varandeuil ventured a 
little farther on, to those of the loth, then to those 
of the nth and 12th; she returned to the 8th, and 
looked about her again. ^JThere was no sign — abso- 
lutely none.^ Germinie had been buried without a 
cross; they had not even placed over her resting- 
place a piece of woo^ 

At last the old lady sank upon her knees in the 
snow between two crosses, one of which bore the 
date of the 9th of November, the other the loth; 
all that remained of Germinie should be near those, 
but her grave was not marked — to pray for her, one 
would have had to pray between two dates. It 
seemed as though the poor woman was fated to 
have no^ more space allotted to her body than to her 
heart. ■ 


THE END 



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page engravings. 

No. 5. Notre Coeur ( The Human Heart). 

By Guy de Maupassant. Translated from the French by Alexina Loranger. Illus- 
trated with 12 half-tone engravings, including portrait of the author. 

No. 6. A Whaleman' s Adventure on Sea and Land. 


By Wm. H. Thornes. 444 pages; 36 full-page illustrations. 

No. 7. Camille, 

By Alexandre Dumas, fils. Illustrated with half-tone illustrations from the 
Original French Etchings. 

No. 8. Pierre et Jean (^Peter and John.) 

By Guy de Maupassant. Translated from the Frenrh by Alexina Loranger. Illus- 
trated with 8 photo-gravures on enameled paper. 

No. g. Madeline Payne^ 7'he Detective' s Daughter. 

By Lawrence L. Lynch, lamo. 45") pages; 45 full-page engravings. 

No. TO. The Rich Man's Fool. 


By Robert C. Givins, Esq. J2mo. 410 pages. Illustrated with 17 photo-gravures 
on enameled paper. 

No. IT. A. D. 2000. 


By Lieut. Alvarado M. Fuller, U. S. Army. izmo. 412 pages. Illustrated with 
half-tones on enameled paper. 

N'o. T2. The Bushrangers. A Yankee's Adventures During a .Second 
Trip to Australia. 

By Wm. II. Thornes. i2mo. 480 pages ; full-page engravings. 

No. jy. The Chouans. 

By Honore de Balzac. With 100 engravings on wood, by Leveflle, from drawings 
by Julien de Blant. Newly translated into English by George Saintsbury. 

No. 14. A Chronicle of the Reign of Charles IX. 

Translated from the French of Prosper Merinee, by George Saintsbury. Illustrated 
wi'.-h no engravings on wood from drawings by Toudouze. 

Above books are printed on a superior quality of calendered paper and 
artistically bound in enameled paper covers, with appropriate designs in colors. 
They are for sale at all bookstores and on all railroad trains. 



S- LEE, 


Puhlisbers, Chicago, III. 









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